An item capture research system having an item capture subsystem, a transaction data archive subsystem, an image data archive subsystem and a research engine. The item capture subsystem captures and stores transaction data and image data for items, such as checks. The transaction data subsystem has multiple data structures for the storage and retrieval of transaction data information, including, an on-us items data structure, a transit items data structure and an all items data structure. Each such data structure includes an online index to an offline archive file. The image data archive subsystem includes image databases for on-us item images, transit item images and white paper images. An online index to the offline image data is provided for. A research engine provides for efficient search and retrieval of image data and transaction data.