Reading PDFs with Apple Intelligence

Book ▸ Smart Import PDFs… (⇧⌘I) reads bank statements, dividend statements and invoices and turns them into transactions for you to review. Bank statements are always read on this device; invoices and dividend statements are read where Settings ▸ Apple Intelligence says.

What it does

• Reads the rows out of the document, including scanned pages.
• Matches each one to a transaction already in your book, in any account.
• Links the PDF to that transaction, and suggests a category.

Match Attachments… (⇧⌘M) does the same for receipts you already have — PDFs or photos: pick the files, and each is paired with its transaction and filed.

Receipts from a trip match too. A card charged overseas posts in your own currency, so nothing on the receipt looks like the amount in your book — but the card issuer writes the original into the transaction, and that figure is matched exactly. No exchange rate, nothing to set up.

Private Cloud Compute

Where Apple offers it, the commands that read one document or write about your figures can use Apple’s Private Cloud Compute, where larger models run on Apple’s servers: Smart Import’s invoices and dividend statements, Match Attachments, Categorise from Attachment, Split from Invoice, Suggest Budget, the forecast’s outlook, report commentary and the review decks. What they read is sent to Apple to process; Apple says it isn’t stored or made accessible to Apple.

• The first time a command would use it, FinvestLens asks — beside the command — whether to use it or keep everything on this device.
• Your answer is kept in Settings ▸ Apple Intelligence, under Where it runs, and you can change it there at any time.
• Bank statements, Auto-Categorise and an import's category suggestions always stay on this device.

A model of your own

Settings ▸ Apple Intelligence can use an open model you already have in place of Apple’s: choose a folder of MLX models, then choose one of them under Where it runs. It does everything here that Apple Intelligence does, on this device. FinvestLens doesn’t provide a model, recommend one or download one.

A large model reads slowly — a page of a statement can take minutes — and how well it reads is the model’s own doing, so the review screen matters more, not less.