turnaround document

Output document produced by a computer that is later, after additional data has been added, used as an input document.

Examples of turnaround documents are the meter-reading cards produced by gas and electricity companies. Each card is output with customer details printed in a typeface readable by OCR (optical character recognition) software and with a standard grid suitable for OMR (optical mark recognition). The meter reader inspects the customer's meter, marks the new reading on the grid, and then returns the card to the company's billing department. There, a universal document reader, capable of reading both OCR and OMR data, is used to input the new information to the computer.