A method and apparatus for item processing is disclosed which provides a stand alone clearing solution having an imaged enable environment for item processing and balancing. The present invention incorporates user-definable balancing control rules, balancing control levels and reconciliation algorithms for facilitating item processing. The present invention includes a data store (14) stored in memory accessible by a capture module (34), a configuration module (38), a balancing module (40), an administration module (46), a publishing module (42) and portal module (48) which provides parallel access to the data store (14) during item processing.