Abstract: A method and apparatus for checking the correlation between all parts of a photofinishing order includes reading the identification numbers on at least some of the parts of the order using an optical character reader. The method includes processing the information received from the optical character reader to compensate for the inherent characteristics of optical character readers to misread portions of the numbers and includes a method of filtering misread and nonread information to prevent false alarm conditions in which an apparent mismatch is actually a misread, while minimizing the number of actual mismatches that are allowed through the system without causing an alarm. In one embodiment, a portion of the information is obtained in bar code form and a memory device is loaded with a table of bar code and optical character reader information for each order to maintain correlation between the order parts.