Photograph a paper or digital receipt and Cash Compass extracts the amount, merchant, and category using on-device OCR — no cloud upload, no third-party server.
Apple-native · No bank logins · iCloud sync
Open the camera button in Cash Compass, snap the receipt, and the app extracts the total, merchant, and date automatically using Apple's Vision framework. The category is inferred from the merchant name. You review the result before saving, then the original photo can stay attached to the transaction for later reference. Faster than typing and more reliable than memory for restaurant or grocery receipts.
Receipt OCR uses Apple's Vision and Speech frameworks locally. The receipt image is processed on your iPhone and never uploaded to a cloud server. That's a real privacy difference from competitor apps that send receipt images to their backend for processing — once a receipt photo leaves your device, you lose control over what happens to it. Cash Compass keeps receipts in your local Core Data store and your iCloud.
The free tier includes three receipt scans so you can test how well OCR works on the receipts you actually get. Premium ($29.99/year) unlocks unlimited receipt scanning along with unlimited voice, CSV export, iCloud sync, and Family Sharing. Most freelancers and small business owners who file expenses by receipt subscribe to premium specifically for this — three free scans cover lunch, but not a quarter of business meals.
Voice, photo of a receipt, or 3-tap manual entry — every method takes under 5 seconds.
Cash Compass picks the category automatically. Override once and it learns your pattern.
Weekly chart shows where money went. Adjust caps before the month is over, not after.
Tap the receipt-photo button on the entry screen and Cash Compass opens the iPhone camera in document-capture mode. Frame the receipt — the camera assist guides you to keep it flat and well-lit — and tap to capture. Apple's Vision framework runs OCR on the image, extracting text blocks for the merchant name (usually at the top), the date, and the total (usually at the bottom). Cash Compass parses these into amount, merchant, and category, then shows you the result for confirmation. Tap any field to correct, then save. The original photo gets attached to the transaction so you can pull it up later if you need to verify or send to an accountant. The whole flow takes around five seconds for a clean receipt.
The free tier includes three receipt scans — enough to see whether OCR handles your typical receipts well. After that, receipt scanning is part of the premium plan ($2.99/week or $29.99/year), which also includes unlimited voice transactions, CSV export, iCloud sync between iPhone and iPad, and Apple Family Sharing across five members. Manual entry stays free and unlimited, so you can keep logging without paying — receipts just need to be typed in instead of photographed. Receipt scanning is a heavy on-device compute task, which is part of why it's premium-gated; running Vision OCR unlimited times is more expensive than letting people type.
Apple's Vision framework is competitive with commercial OCR for printed receipts in good lighting — typical accuracy on the amount field is over 95%. Where it struggles: very long receipts (CVS, Walmart), thermal receipts that have faded, handwritten amounts, and tipped totals where the customer wrote the tip in pen. Expensify is more polished for business-expense workflows with policy enforcement, but charges $4.99-12/user/month. QuickBooks integrates with full accounting but is overkill for personal use. Rocket Money doesn't have receipt OCR — it's a subscription-cancellation app. Cash Compass is the lightest-weight option that does it well for personal and small-business use, with privacy as the differentiator: no cloud upload.
Confirmation is built into the flow — Cash Compass shows you the parsed amount, merchant, and category after OCR runs, and you can tap any field to edit before saving. The amount opens a numeric keyboard, the merchant becomes editable text, and the category opens a picker. We do this on purpose because a wrong amount baked into your budget is a much worse failure than five seconds of review. The original receipt photo stays attached even after you save, so if you spot an issue later (say, when reconciling a credit card statement) you can pull up the photo and correct the transaction. Repeat scans of the same merchant get more consistent over time as the parser sees the layout repeatedly. For receipts that consistently misparse, manual entry is faster than fighting the OCR.
Built native for iPhone, iPad, and Mac with iCloud sync. Works offline.
No bank logins, no Plaid, no data sales. All data lives in your iCloud.
Manual entry, charts, category tracking — all free, forever. Premium is optional.
Three free scans to test it. Unlimited receipt OCR plus voice, exports, and iCloud sync with premium.
Download Cash Compass on the App Store