To log expenses by voice, say the spend the way you’d text a friend, “lunch, twelve dollars”, and let the app pull out the amount, the name and the category. In 6pm, tap the mic or ask Siri. It’s the fastest way to catch cash, tips and the small stuff no bank ever tells you about.
The spends that slip through
Card taps leave a trail. Online orders send emails. But a surprising chunk of money moves with no record at all: the $3 tip in the jar, $20 cash at the farmers market, $5 for parking, the $10 you Venmo’d back… wait, that one has a trail, but you’ll never look at it.
These are exactly the spends manual tracking was supposed to catch, and exactly the ones nobody bothers to type. Open app, find button, tap amount, pick category: four steps for a $4 coffee. Saying it takes three seconds and one hand.
How to log an expense by voice in 6pm
1. Tap the mic
Open 6pm and tap the microphone (or hold it while you talk). The prompt says it all: talk like you’re texting a friend.
2. Say it naturally
Things 6pm understands:
- “Coffee, six dollars”
- “Lunch twelve dollars”
- “Parking, 8 dollars”
- “Farmers market, twenty-three, cash”
- “Birthday gift for Sam, forty-five”
- “Groceries one hundred twelve”
You don’t need a format. Amount first or last, with or without “dollars”, in words or digits.
3. Check and save
6pm shows what it heard, the amount and its best guess at a category (coffee goes to Drinks, Uber to Transport). Fix anything that’s off, save, and the spend lands in your Inbox with everything else from today. Today’s number drops right away.
Forgot the amount? 6pm asks for it instead of guessing.
Don’t open the app at all: Siri, Action button, Control Center
- Siri. Say “Hey Siri, log in 6pm,” then the amount when Siri asks. The spend is logged without opening the app, and Siri usually shows what’s now safe to spend today.
- Action button (iPhone 15 Pro and later) or Control Center (iOS 18 and later): set either to Quick add for a one-press keypad when your hands are free but your voice isn’t (meetings, libraries, a quiet train).
What happens to your voice
Voice is personal, so here’s exactly what happens.
By default, while you’re holding or have tapped the mic, the audio streams from your microphone straight to a speech-to-text service (ElevenLabs, or Deepgram) and the words come back. 6pm’s server only hands your phone a short-lived key and records that one transcription happened. It never hears the sound or sees the words. Nothing is recorded on your phone.
On the free plan, you get 10 cloud transcriptions a day. After that, offline, or if you switch on on-device AI (Settings → AI), Apple’s own speech recognition does the job right on your iPhone and nothing is sent. 6pm Max removes the cap.
The cloud service hears whichever language you speak, so if your app is in English and you blurt out “phở, sixty thousand dong” on a trip, that works too. 6pm understands English and Vietnamese, including shorthand like “45k” and “1.5 million”.
Voice vs. keypad vs. automatic
Voice isn’t meant to replace everything. It’s the gap filler.
| Spend | Best way |
|---|---|
| Apple Pay tap | Shortcuts automation (zero effort) |
| Card used online | Bank or shop email forwarded to your 6pm address |
| Paper receipt | Scan |
| Cash, tips, parking | Voice |
| Several cash items in a row | Quick add keypad |
| Venmo / Zelle to a friend | Voice, or share the confirmation |
Everything lands in the same Inbox, and duplicates from different automatic sources are merged. Things you say or type are never merged with anything, so a deliberate second coffee stays two coffees.
The close: where misheard words get fixed
Speech recognition sometimes hears “fifteen” as “fifty”. That’s fine, because nothing is final until the close. At 6pm (or any time you choose between 3pm and 11:45pm), each spend comes up as a receipt card: Keep, Edit, or Not mine. The last one stamps the day CLOSED. About a minute.
Your companion (a small sun, by default) might chime in with something like “Caught it. Back to your day.” It teases habits, never you. Not in the mood? Serious mode turns the jokes off.
A day of voice logging
Say your pay is $3,200 a month and today’s safe-to-spend is $54. A Tuesday:
- 8:05 “Coffee, six dollars, cash”
- 9:00 “Parking eight”
- 12:40 “Food truck, fourteen”
- 6:15 “Tip for the barber, ten”
Four sentences, under 20 seconds of talking, $38 that would otherwise have vanished. Your morning number tomorrow is honest because today was.
FAQ
Can I log expenses by voice with Siri?
Yes. Say “Log in 6pm” and give the amount when Siri asks. The spend is logged without opening the app.
Does voice logging work offline?
Yes. Without a connection, 6pm uses Apple’s on-device speech recognition, as long as your iPhone has dictation for that language.
Is my voice recorded or stored?
Nothing is recorded on your phone, and 6pm’s server never hears the audio. It streams to the speech-to-text service only while you’re talking. To keep everything on the phone, turn on on-device AI in Settings.
Is voice logging free?
Yes. Free includes 10 cloud transcriptions a day, then unlimited on-device speech. 6pm Max removes the daily cloud cap.
Can it handle amounts like “45k” or “1.5 million”?
It reads amounts in words or digits, with shorthand like k and million, in English and Vietnamese. If it gets one wrong, fix it on the card or at the close.
Try 6pm
6pm arrives on the App Store on Friday 6 November 2026 at 18:00 Vietnam time (6:00 a.m. Eastern). Want to try “coffee, six dollars” today? Join the public TestFlight beta: testflight.apple.com/join/a8UrvT5P. More at at6pm.app.
Every spend, caught.