Instead of using the CRON, you can have your own parsing/formatting script poll for the new files in the specific directory. Something like this:

while (1<2) {
     opendir (DIR, $dir) or die "cannot opendir $dir";
     my @only_files = grep {-f "$dir/$_"} readdir(DIR);
     readdir DIR;
     closedir DIR;
     foreach $file (@only_files) {
        &process_file ($file);
     }
sleep(10);
}
[download]

This will poll $dir every 10 seconds (set in the sleep line) for any new files.

If your files are big, you might want to add some of the verification mentioned earlier, regarding the file size, etc.