22. An automated data capture server, comprising: an interface for scanning a set of data items, each data item corresponding to a data value; a plurality of transformations applied in a series for generating recognized value from the scanned data item, the transformations defining a combined sequence from an input stream of data form to a final data value to convert the scanned data item to the recognized value, each of the transformations in the series converting the data item to a different form of the recognized value; a builder for determining, for each of the transformations, a component confidence, the component confidence indicative of a likelihood of accurate conversion from an input form to the different form; a confidence builder for combining each of the component confidences determined for a particular data item, and comparing, in a learning mode, the recognized value from a final transformation of the data item to the corresponding data value; and a confidence model for accumulating, if the compared recognized value matches the corresponding data value, the confidence components in the confidence 5 model, the accumulated confidence components indicative of accurate recognitions.
27. The server of claim 22 wherein the data capture server is further operable to: identify, in an automated data collection stream, transformations of data between data representation forms, each of the transformations subject to a likelihood of accurate transformation between the data representation forms; receive a training data set; retrieve a control set of data representative of an accurate translation of the data through each of the transformations; and develop a confidence model for specifying, for each translation of data, a relative weight indicative of an accuracy for that transformation.