Ngumba

Ngumba does the things people go to a business centre for.

Scan. Photograph a page on a table, at an angle, in whatever light the room has. Ngumba finds the corners, flattens it as though shot from straight above, and takes out the shadow and the yellow of the bulb. A poster keeps its colour. A page of type comes out sharp and small.

Make it fit. "Nothing over 2 MB" is the most common reason people end up paying somebody at a counter. Type the limit you were given and Ngumba finds the largest readable version that fits underneath it.

Invoice. Quote, invoice and receipt are one document at three moments of its life. No invoice-number field — it counts. No date field — it is today. Add your logo and your letterhead and it prints on your own paper. Record a deposit when somebody pays half now and half on delivery.

Sign. Draw your signature once. After that it is a tap: drag it where it goes, pinch to size it. The ink is drawn into the page, and the unsigned original stays exactly as it was.

Keep. Everything lands in one place, named after what is on it and searchable by any word inside it — not just by what you called it. Nobody remembers naming a document; they remember it was the lease with Kemi.

Your documents stay on your phone.

There is no account and nothing to sign up for. Nothing is uploaded. The text on your pages is read on the phone itself, not sent anywhere to be read. When you send something it goes where you sent it — WhatsApp, email, a printer — and not through us on the way. Turn on flight mode and everything except sending still works.

One consequence worth knowing: no cloud means no cloud backup. Ngumba writes a backup file you keep yourself, so send anything irreplaceable to yourself as well.

In English and French.