Business Card Scanner for NDT Companies, Straight into Your CRM
Scan business cards from site visits and trade shows straight into CRM. Request a demo. Affordable. Accessible. Fully customizable. Quote on request.
The pile of business cards nobody enters
Every NDT company knows the pattern. Your operations manager comes back from a turnaround planning meeting with eight cards. Your Level III spends two days at a trade show and returns with a rubber-banded stack. Your sales lead meets a new QA/QC manager at a fabrication shop and slips the card into a wallet. A week later the cards are sitting on a desk, half of them still not in any system, and the follow-up that should have gone out while the conversation was fresh never happens.
This matters more in inspection than in most trades. NDT work is won on relationships and timing. A refinery inspection coordinator who mentioned a shutdown in the spring, an EPC project engineer who needs a PAUT crew for a pipe rack, a fabrication shop owner whose current RT subcontractor keeps missing dates: these are live opportunities, and each one sits on a small piece of card stock until someone types it in.
Typing it in is the problem. Nobody enjoys copying names, titles, mobile numbers and email addresses into a CRM at the end of a long day. Typos creep in, emails bounce, phone numbers lose their country code, and the card ends up in a drawer. The Business Cards app in Atlantis NDT ERP removes that step. You take a photo, the details are read for you, and one click turns the card into a CRM lead or a mailing-list contact.
What the Business Cards app does
The app is built around a single job: turn a photo of a business card into a clean contact record inside your ERP. It is part of Atlantis NDT ERP, our fully customized system pre-configured for inspection companies, so the contact lands in the same database your quotes, jobs, technicians and invoices already live in.
- Photo capture and mobile upload. Snap the card with a phone or upload an image from your desktop. Salespeople and managers can do it on the spot, in the car park after the meeting, or on the flight home.
- AI/OCR extraction. The app reads the card and pulls out the name, company, job title, email address, phone numbers and website.
- Review before saving. You see the extracted fields and correct anything the scan misread, such as an unusual spelling or a stylised logo.
- One click to CRM. Create a CRM lead directly from the card, ready for your NDT-specific lead fields.
- One click to a mailing list. Or add the person to a mailing list for newsletters and announcements instead of treating them as an active opportunity.
That is deliberately simple. The app does not try to be a full sales tool on its own; it feeds the CRM, Email Marketing and AI Marketing apps that already sit in the ERP. The value is that the card stops being a to-do item and becomes a record your team can act on the same day.
How it runs day to day
Here is what the workflow looks like for a typical inspection company after a client visit or an industry event.
- Capture. The person who met the contact photographs the card on their phone and uploads it. If they collected twenty cards at a conference booth, they work through the stack one photo at a time while waiting at the gate.
- Extract. The app reads the image and fills in name, company, title, email, phones and website.
- Check. A quick glance to fix anything odd. Cards with two numbers, a landline and a mobile, are common in plant and EPC roles; both are captured.
- Decide. Is this a live opportunity or a relationship to keep warm? A turnaround manager asking about a crew for next quarter becomes a CRM lead. A peer from another inspection company might go on a mailing list instead.
- Enrich. On the lead, the salesperson adds what they learned in the conversation: service line, NDT service type, industry sector, site country, and rough estimates of technicians and days.
- Follow up. The lead can be enrolled in a drip email sequence or contacted directly, starting from an AI-personalised email preview.
Nothing here needs admin rights or more than a few minutes of training. That is the point: the easier capture is, the more cards actually make it into the system, and the fewer opportunities go cold in a drawer.
Where business cards come from in NDT work
Inspection companies meet prospects in places generic sales software was never designed for. The Business Cards app fits the way NDT business actually gets done.
- Trade shows and conferences. NDT, corrosion, welding, pipeline and oil and gas events generate stacks of cards in a few days. Capturing them the same evening means follow-ups go out while people still remember your booth.
- Site visits and pre-job meetings. When a crew mobilises to a refinery or petrochemical plant, the site supervisor often meets the client's inspection engineer, the maintenance planner and sometimes a third-party inspector. Each is a future contact.
- Turnaround and shutdown planning. Planning meetings bring together contractors, EPC coordinators and owner representatives. The person who hands you a card today may be allocating inspection scope next season.
- Fabrication shops and EPC offices. Visits to fabrication yards, pressure-vessel shops and structural steel fabricators often start with a card exchanged at reception.
- Training and consulting contacts. Technicians and QA managers who ask about Level I, II or III training or procedure consulting are worth keeping in touch with, even if they are not buying inspection services today.
- Vendors and partners. Equipment dealers, calibration labs and subcontract inspectors hand out cards too. They can be captured as contacts without cluttering your sales pipeline.
Because all of these land in one database, your team can see, before the next meeting, who else in the company has already met that client and what was discussed.
From card to qualified NDT lead
A name and an email address are only the start. The CRM app in Atlantis NDT ERP carries fields that matter for inspection sales, so a scanned card becomes a lead your team can prioritise properly.
- Service line and NDT service type. Is this about field inspection, a training enquiry, consulting or software? Which methods: UT, RT, MT, PT, PAUT, TOFD, ET?
- Industry sector. Refining, petrochemical, power generation, pipelines, fabrication, maritime, aerospace. The sector shapes the codes, the crew profile and the paperwork you will need.
- Site country. Where the work would actually happen, which is not always where the contact's office is.
- Estimated technicians and days. A rough size of the job, recorded while the conversation is fresh.
- Lead source. Which event, visit or referral produced the card, so you can later see which shows and activities are worth the travel.
The CRM then gives each lead an NDT lead score from 0 to 100, grouped as hot, warm, nurture or cold. That helps a small sales team decide where to spend the week: the hot turnaround enquiry gets a phone call today, the cold contact goes into a nurture sequence.
If you already hold contacts in spreadsheets from earlier events, the CRM also supports lead import from CSV, so the backlog and the newly scanned cards end up in the same place, scored the same way.
Following up without spamming anyone
Capturing a card is useless if the follow-up is missing or clumsy. The Business Cards app hands contacts to the parts of the ERP that handle outreach.
Personal follow-up. From the CRM lead, a salesperson can generate an AI-personalised email preview and edit it before sending. It is a starting draft, not an auto-send: you stay in control of the tone and the facts, which matters when you are writing to a plant inspection manager who remembers exactly what you promised.
Drip sequences. A lead can be enrolled in a drip email sequence for its service line. The AI Marketing app runs these sequences with pause, resume and unsubscribe controls, plus scheduling so emails do not land in the middle of the night in the contact's time zone.
Mailing lists. Contacts added to a mailing list receive your newsletters and announcements through Email Marketing: a new method capability, an updated training calendar, an expansion into a new region.
Your own AI server. The AI Marketing app can use a model running on your own server, so the text of your campaigns and the contact details behind them do not have to go to a third-party AI service. For companies with confidentiality clauses in client contracts, that is worth discussing during implementation.
The result is a steady, human-sounding follow-up process that starts the day the card is scanned, without anyone maintaining a separate spreadsheet of people they meant to email.
Who uses it in an NDT company
| Role | How they use Business Cards |
|---|---|
| Owner / managing director | Scans cards from senior client meetings and industry events, and can see that every contact they meet is followed up by the team. |
| Business development / sales | Captures cards daily, creates CRM leads, fills in the NDT fields and enrols contacts in sequences. |
| Operations manager | Captures contacts met during mobilisation and turnaround planning, and flags follow-on work spotted on site. |
| Level III / technical manager | Scans cards from technical committees, audits and conferences, and routes training and consulting enquiries. |
| Site supervisors and senior technicians | Upload a card from their phone when a client engineer asks about extra scope on site. |
| Marketing / admin | Maintains mailing lists, checks data quality and runs newsletters and campaigns. |
Access follows the normal ERP user rights. A site supervisor can be allowed to upload cards and create leads without seeing your financial dashboard or the figures on your quotes. Those permissions are set during implementation to match how your company is organised.
The field side matters most. In inspection, many of the best leads are met by people who are not in sales at all. The technician who hears a client's QA manager complain about a slow RT subcontractor is holding a lead. Giving that person a quick way to get the card into the system is often the difference between winning follow-on work and hearing about it after it has gone to a competitor.
How Business Cards connects to the rest of the ERP
A standalone card scanner produces a contact list. Inside Atlantis NDT ERP, the card is the first step of a chain that runs all the way to the invoice.
- Business Cards creates the contact and the CRM lead.
- CRM scores the lead, holds the NDT scope and tracks the conversation.
- Quotations turns the opportunity into a branded quote with job type, site, project dates and applicable codes, which the client can accept and sign online.
- Project and Team Assignments plan the job, dispatch technicians and block double-booking of people and equipment.
- NDT Reports captures the inspection results and sends the approved report.
- Invoicing bills the job, with labour, equipment and consumables subtotals.
Because the contact record is shared, the client engineer whose card was scanned at a conference is the same person who later receives the quote and the inspection report. No re-typing between systems, no second copy of an email address with a typo in it.
You can read about the other modules on the ERP apps overview, or see how the whole system fits together on the Atlantis NDT ERP page. Contacts also arrive the other way: enquiries submitted through your company website land in the same CRM as your scanned cards.
Show new contacts something worth remembering
A follow-up email is stronger when it gives the prospect something concrete to look at. Two Atlantis products tend to start good conversations with the people you meet.
Digital Twin Reporting Software is our companion product to the ERP's NDT Reports app. It places inspection results on a 3D model of the asset, so a plant owner can see where readings and findings sit on the equipment instead of flipping through pages of tables. It is a separate product that works alongside the ERP. For asset owners and inspection engineers, a short demo often says more than a brochure.
Practical NDT is an immersive, game-like 3D practice platform for UT, PAUT, RT, MT, PT, VT, ET and TOFD, with scenarios on virtual welds, pipes, vessels and castings. Learners enrolled in the ERP's eLearning portal get a Practical NDT section that opens the platform. For contacts who manage technicians or training budgets, it is a natural topic after a meeting.
Your follow-up sequences can reference either product, depending on the industry sector and service line recorded against the lead.
Setup and implementation
Atlantis NDT deploys and configures the ERP for you. For Business Cards the work is light, but a few decisions shape how useful it becomes.
- Who can scan. We agree which users get the app on mobile and whether field staff can create leads or only contacts.
- Lead fields and sources. We set up your service lines, NDT service types, industry sectors and lead sources so scanned cards are categorised consistently.
- Mailing lists. We create the lists you actually use, for example clients, training prospects, partners and vendors.
- Sequences. We help you set up drip sequences per service line, written in your own voice.
- AI model choice. We discuss where the AI extraction and email drafting run, including the option of a model on your own server.
- Existing contacts. Spreadsheet contacts can be brought in through the CRM's CSV import so old and new records live together.
Anything beyond this, such as extra fields specific to your market or an approval step before a lead is created, becomes part of the customization scope agreed with you. The ERP is affordable, accessible and fully customizable, and the quote reflects what you actually need.
Want to watch a card go from photo to scored lead? Book a Business Cards demo.
Frequently asked questions
What details does the app read from a business card?
Name, company, job title, email address, phone numbers and website. You can check and correct them before the record is saved.
Can I scan cards from my phone?
Yes. Mobile upload is supported, so you can photograph a card right after a meeting on site or at an event and create the lead straight away.
Does every scanned card become a sales lead?
No, you choose. One click creates a CRM lead; another adds the person to a mailing list. Vendors, peers and partners can stay as contacts without cluttering your pipeline.
Can scanned leads go into an email sequence?
Yes. A lead can be enrolled in a drip email sequence from the CRM. Sequences support pause, resume and unsubscribe, and you decide which sequence fits each service line.
Where does the AI run?
The AI Marketing features can use a model running on your own server. Where extraction and drafting run for your installation is agreed during implementation.
Is Business Cards sold on its own?
It is part of Atlantis NDT ERP, which is configured for your company. Pricing is quote on request, based on the apps and customization you need.
Can we import the contacts we already have?
Yes. The CRM supports lead import from CSV, so contacts from old spreadsheets and past events sit alongside newly scanned cards.
Stop losing leads in a drawer
The people you meet on site and at events are some of the most valuable contacts your NDT company has, and most of them never make it into a system. Business Cards fixes that first step so the rest of the ERP can do its job. Request a quote for Atlantis NDT ERP and we will walk you through the full chain from card to invoice.
Works with
- CRM: Leads and opportunities for inspection, training and consulting work.
- Quotations: Inspection quotes built from rates, crews and scope, sent for e-signature.
- Contacts: One address book for clients, sites, vendors and technicians.
- AI Marketing: AI-assisted outreach and campaign content for NDT buyers.
- Email Marketing: Newsletters and campaigns to clients and prospects.
- Website: Company website and enquiry forms connected to CRM.
Send an enquiry about Business Cards · All ERP apps · Atlantis NDT ERP
Built for any business that runs on operations
Most companies do not fail at their craft. They lose time, margin and goodwill in the gaps between the tools they use to run the place — a quoting spreadsheet that does not talk to the job sheet, a job sheet that does not reach accounts, and a compliance folder nobody can search when a client asks. Atlantis closes those gaps by putting the whole operation on one platform, so information is entered once and everything downstream stays in step.
What you can run on it
- Sales and CRM — leads, quotes, follow-ups and the pipeline that tells you what next month looks like.
- Projects and job costing — plan the work, track the hours and materials against it, and see the margin while the job is still live rather than at final account.
- Field and service teams — dispatch, schedules, mobile capture that works with no signal, and sign-off from site.
- Inventory and purchasing — stock, suppliers, reorder points and goods receipt, joined to the jobs that consume them.
- People — records, qualifications and licences with renewal reminders, timesheets, leave and payroll.
- Quality and documents — procedures and forms under revision control, with the audit trail an inspection or accreditation body actually asks for.
- Accounts — invoicing, expenses, multi-currency and the reporting your accountant stops chasing you for.
Affordable, accessible, fully customizable — and we mean each word
Affordable because the whole suite is included rather than sold to you a module at a time, and because implementation is done by people who have run operations rather than by a chain of subcontractors. Accessible because it runs in a browser and on a phone, works for a small team on day one, and does not need a specialist on staff to keep it alive. Fully customizable because your process is the thing that makes you competitive — the software should bend to it, not the other way round.
Industries we configure for
Service businesses and contractors, manufacturing and fabrication, trading and distribution, laboratories and testing houses, engineering consultancies, construction and facilities, and asset owners across energy, marine, aerospace and infrastructure. Inspection and testing is where we started, and it remains the sector we go deepest in — but the platform underneath is general-purpose, and most of what it does has nothing to do with inspection at all.
What happens when you get in touch
A short conversation, not a sales sequence. We ask how the business runs today and where it hurts, show you the platform doing that work, and send a written quote shaped to your region, your team size and the scope you actually need. No obligation, nothing to install first, and no pressure to decide on the call. Reach out and tell us what you are trying to fix.
Related: business management platform · inspection management software · choosing the right category of software · modules · by industry · asset integrity platform. Book a free consultation.
Speak to an ASNT NDT Level III
Atlantis NDT provides ASNT Level III consulting, NDT training to ASNT SNT-TC-1A, inspection management software and independent report validation. Request a free consultation and we will return a tailored quote — affordable, accessible and fully customizable to your programme.