Abstract: Bills are loaded into a hopper, separated and moved one at a time passed authentication sensors and an optical scanner. The sensors include a UV scanner, a magnetic sensor, an infrared scanner and a metallic thread detector. A main transport belt cooperates with first and second sensor transport belts to move the bills through the scanning section and into the bill collection section. The bill collection section includes multiple collection bins, each associated with a gate which, when actuated, guides a bill into the bin. A plurality of bill tracking sensors are located along the transport path. Data signals from the authentication sensors and the optical scanner for each bill are digitized and alternately routed to two parallel data processors. The processor outputs and tracking sensor outputs are fed to a control circuit which operates the collection bin gates and regulates the transport mechanism speed.