You've walked past the kiosk on your way to a flight. You've paused at the entry in the SkyMall magazine.
The Neat Company, based in Philadelphia, makes products to organize the avalanche of paperwork that accumulates if you travel for work or are a small business owner. Receipts, business cards, invoices, and other scraps can pile up into an unwieldy stack very quickly, and if you are out on the road, keeping track of these little white bits is not exactly a top priority. Neat makes two versions of its product, which combines a scanner with software to create a digital filing cabinet. NeatDesk and its traveling companion NeatReceipts scan paper, automatically classify and organize documents for easy reference and retrieval with included NeatWorks software.
"The world of paper is the last world to go digital," says Kevin Garton, Neat's Chief Marketing Officer. "Think of it like iTunes and the iPod, but for paperwork." Garton says that the Neat line of products is also useful on the home front, where parents can scan children's medical records as well as personal paperwork, and Neat makes tax time much easier for home and business users. Garton also points out that scanned documents are fully searchable.
Neat, which got initial funding from
Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania, reports that it experienced 536 percent revenue growth in 2010. Neat began as a father and son business, after the pair got fed up with an expense reporting process that more closely resembled an arts and crafts project involving scissors, tape and more paper. Garton says that from that first kiosk at Philadelphia International Airport, Neat products are now available at major retailers nationwide both online and in-store, as well as on the Neat website. The expanding company will be moving its headquarters to 16th and Market Streets in April.
This week, Neat rolled out an upgrade for Mac users, and
announced a contest to award ten people $1,000 each. Contestants enter by posting a comment on Neat's blog or Facebook page, by retweeting, or by mentioning the contest on a blog.
Source: Kevin Garton, The Neat Company
Writer: Sue Spolan