How it works on your phone

“Pay with your phone and the expense writes itself down” is true on both systems, but they get there by different routes and they do not cost the same to set up. This page says which is which, because finding out after paying is a fair reason to ask for a refund.

In both cases the amount and the merchant are encrypted on your device like any other expense, and in both cases it can be switched off — though not from inside FinnTrack: on Android by taking away its notification access in the system settings, and on iPhone by deleting the automation in Shortcuts.

Android: it writes itself down

FinnTrack reads the notice Google Wallet shows when you pay, and takes the amount and the merchant from it. You switch it on once, from Settings → Phone payments: you grant permission to read Google Wallet's notices and permission for FinnTrack to notify you. From then on you pay and the expense appears, without touching anything.

• You need Google Wallet, a card in it and NFC.
• FinnTrack only looks at Google Wallet's notices, no others.
• If your bank words the notice in a shape we do not know yet, the expense arrives with the amount but may arrive without the merchant. That is fixable, and it is the thing we are most grateful to hear about.

iPhone: one step from you, once

iOS does not let an app find out about your payments. What it does allow is for you to set up a Shortcuts automation that hands the amount and the merchant to FinnTrack every time you pay. It takes two minutes and you do it once, but you have to do it: FinnTrack cannot do it for you and cannot check whether you have, so it will not tell you it is missing.

1. An iPhone on iOS 17 or later and a card in Wallet.
2. In FinnTrack: More → Settings → Phone payments, allow it to notify you and tap Open Shortcuts.
3. In Shortcuts: Automation → + → Transaction, pick your card, tick Run immediately.
4. Add the Log payment in FinnTrack action and link its three fields to the transaction variables: amount, merchant and currency.

Once that is done it works just like Android: you pay and the expense appears. Without it, FinnTrack is the same application, but you write the expenses down yourself.

If you would rather not switch it on

You lose nothing but the automatic part. Writing an expense down is two taps, the ones that repeat write themselves down from day one, and you can import a CSV from the bank. None of that needs payment permissions.

The detail of what is stored and what we see is in the threat model.