Most of your spending already tells your phone about itself. An Apple Pay tap lands in Wallet. A UPI payment or a card swipe sends a text from your bank. Until now you still had to read that and type it back into Pocket Clear.
On iPhone, you can now let those two log themselves. You set up one Shortcuts automation for Apple Pay and one for your bank's texts. After that, a tap or a debit text becomes an expense in Pocket Clear with nothing to open and nothing to type. There's no bank linking, and the message is read on your phone.
Why it takes a Shortcuts automation
Apple doesn't let apps read your texts or watch your Wallet. That's a good rule, and we wouldn't want it any other way. What iOS does allow is personal automations: you tell the Shortcuts app "when this happens, run that action." Pocket Clear provides the action. You decide when it runs.
So Pocket Clear never scans your inbox. It sees exactly the messages your own automation passes to it, and nothing else. You can open the automation any time to see what it matches, or delete it to stop.
Before you start
- Update Pocket Clear to the latest version.
- Open the On-Device AI tab and tap Enable On-Device AI. The automations log nothing while it's off.
- An iPhone on iOS 26 or later. That's when Pocket Clear's two automation actions are available. You don't need Apple Intelligence: the amount, merchant and date are read by Pocket Clear's own rules.
- Auto-logging is part of Capture, which is free for everyone until 31 December 2026 and part of Pro after that.
Auto-log Apple Pay, step by step
- Open Shortcuts, go to Automation, tap + and choose Transaction.
- Choose the cards to watch, pick Run Immediately, and tap Next.
- Choose New Blank Automation, search for Pocket Clear and add Log Apple Pay Payment.
- Tap each field and pick from Shortcut Input: Amount → Amount, Merchant → Merchant, Card → Card or Pass. Tap Done.
Next time you tap, it's logged. The card is matched to your payment types by name, so a payment type called "Apple Card" or "HDFC Regalia" is picked up for you. The category comes from how you've filed that merchant before, or from the on-device model if your iPhone has one. Anything it can't place goes under Other, and you can change it later.
Auto-log bank SMS, step by step
- Open Shortcuts, go to Automation, tap + and choose Message.
- Set Message Contains to debited, pick Run Immediately, and tap Next.
- Choose New Blank Automation, search for Pocket Clear and add Log Bank Message. Tap the Message field, pick Shortcut Input, and tap Done.
- Banks word their texts differently, so make two more automations the same way, with Spent and used at. If your bank says something else, like Sent or Debit, add one for that word too.
Each debit is then logged with the amount, the merchant, the date and whether it was UPI or a card, all read from the text.
Which banks it reads
Pocket Clear reads bank texts with its own rules, so it doesn't depend on an AI model. We tuned those rules on real messages from HDFC Bank, HSBC, Axis Bank and Kotak. Here's what those look like, with the word each automation needs:
- HDFC Bank card: "Spent Rs.520 On HDFC Bank Card 4843 At …" (needs Spent)
- HSBC credit card: "HSBC Credit Card xx2865 used at APARNA CINEMAS for INR 510.00 …" (needs used at). The available limit and the amount due in the same text are ignored. Only the spend is logged.
- Axis Bank UPI: "Debit INR 499.00 A/c no. XX1234 … UPI/P2M/…/Zepto Marketplace" (needs Debit)
- Kotak UPI: "Sent Rs.450.00 from Kotak Bank AC X1234 to swiggy@icici …" (needs Sent)
Other banks that say "debited", "spent" or "used at" usually work too. If yours doesn't, email us an example with the account number blanked out and we'll look at it.
What it won't log
Nobody is watching when an automation runs, so Pocket Clear never asks you a question. If it can't be sure a message is money that just left your account, it skips it:
- credits, salary, money received, refunds and reversals;
- OTPs and verification codes, even ones that mention an amount;
- ATM cash withdrawals. Log what you spend the cash on instead.
- future or scheduled debits, declined or failed payments, payment requests and bill reminders;
- Apple Pay refunds, zero amounts, ATM withdrawals, and payments in another currency (unless Travel Mode is on for it).
Paid with Apple Pay and got a text? Logged once.
If you set up both, one purchase can trigger both automations: the tap, then your bank's text a minute later. Pocket Clear logs it once. It treats the same amount at the same merchant on the same day as one payment, and it matches merchant names loosely, so "APARNA CINEMAS" in the text matches "Aparna Cinemas" from Wallet. When one of the two has no merchant name, they only count as the same payment if they arrive within 10 minutes of each other. Two separate ₹50 chai payments hours apart are both logged.
You still own every entry
Semi-automated doesn't mean hands-off. Every auto-logged expense appears under Recent captures on the On-Device AI tab, where you can edit it or undo it. Each one is an ordinary transaction you can change or delete like any other.
- No bank linking. No login, no aggregator, no account connection. Pocket Clear only sees the text or tap your automation passes it.
- Read on your phone. The message is parsed on the device. It isn't uploaded to Pocket Clear or to any AI company.
- Private by default. On the free plan your entries stay on your phone. With Pro Cloud Sync on, the expense syncs like any other, and the synced copy is encrypted at rest with AES-256.
On Android
Android works differently, and we don't read your SMS there. Google Play restricts SMS access, and it isn't something we want anyway. On Android, share a bank text or paste it into Quick Log and it's read on your phone in one tap.
The full setup, with every skip rule, is in the help centre: Auto-log Apple Pay payments and Auto-log bank SMS.
Let Your Payments Log Themselves
Set up two Shortcuts automations once and Apple Pay taps and bank texts land in Pocket Clear on their own. No bank linking, read on your phone.