Keeping receipts and warranties is a pain for consumers. A few diligent folks keep files in their table drawers with warranties on the expensive appliances and devices they bought. The majority of us can't be bothered so the receipts either end up being scattered around or lost altogether. Warrantify set out to alleviate that pain by digitalizing the process. Their platform helps users keep and manage receipts in one place through a simple dashboard. You can download either scanned copies of your receipts, add digital receipts from online retailers or (in the future) have a 'warrantified' receipt sent directly from a retailer into your account.

Warrantify built a similar solution for retailers to help them easily store, manage and recall warantees. As an added benefit, retailers can use the data acquired through Warrantify receipts for targeted advertising and loyalty programs. The primary target for using the service are retailers of consumer electronics.

Warrantify is free to use for consumers though the service collects a transaction fee from retailers on every sold item. Warrantify also aims to charge for cross-sells and up-sells done through the service.

While the problem the company is addressing is an actual pain for consumers, it is not necessarily a pain for retailers. Many consumer electronic vendors (especially those operating online) already make electronic receipts and digitally manage them in-house. Plus, businesses are not likely to share  revenue from each sold item with a service that is an add-on rather than an essential feature.

From a  consumer's perspective, though, Warrantify makes a lot of sense. In this day and age it seems rather pointless to store hard copies of your receipts and spend ages going through a heap of papers the moment you need one of them. This service can also save a lot of time for small and medium-sized businesses that buy expensive equipment for their offices.

Though the problem is obvious, building a business around it is not an easy thing. While having an automated process to deal with receipts is appealing, both consumers and retailers might be reluctant to pay for it. Besides, making the process automated would require signing in a lot of retailers to use the service, which is likely to be hard and take some time.

Paperless receipts might also run into legal troubles in some countries where audits and tax offices require hard copies of the original receipt or document. Not to mention the fact that retailers might not be willing to share information about their product failures with a third party.

That said, Warrantify publicly launched their product only a month ago, which means their solution is likely to go through a few changes that would hopefully help them solve the identified problems and prove all the criticism wrong.

Founded by Haritash Tamvada, Warrantify is based in Helsinki, Finland with an office in Hyderabad, India. Last October the start-up was granted the Best Startup Award at STARTup Live#4 event in Vienna. The company's targeted markets are India and US.

Below are screenshots of Warrantify for users and for retailers: