systems , methods and program products for recording a document &# 39 ; s background data during front - end generation of the document , and inserting a background data identifier on the document . in addition , the invention provides for use of the background data for document processing . for example , the invention provides for removal of the background data from scanner image data of the document to create a foreground image . the foreground image can be used to conduct processing relative to the document such as archiving , fraud detection and other processing . background data recordation and removal during back - end processing results in improved archive accuracy , lowered storage size requirements , and reduced transmission costs . in addition , background data recordation allows referencing of a single background by a large number of documents .