Hi everyone, I am KD - Back in my college days, I dabbled with coding, learned the basics, HTML, CSS etc. but somehow I ended up in Finance which consumed the next 20 years. Then, during covid I picked up coding again, learned react, typescript, etc - even built a rudimentary site - and then came the chatgpt moment, followed by Claude etc.
So, as a side project, considering that I had spent 20 years in finance and M&A I started building Ekselio, loveable for finance workflows.
Differently from other vibe coding tools, this is local first - meaning the workflows are orchestrated by the LLM based on the file schema but then the execution happens in the browser - the cool thing is that you can see the canvas, the previews of each node, and the code base (SQl) - see the Canvas tab.
That said I did include a home tab, which is more of a visual, mainly because people think it's easier to relate to how folks operate, although I know finance and accounting folks usually like the workflow and full transparency - the other thing is that once you create a workflow you can save it and then next month,you can just click Run and it runs it again with no LLM tokes involved - so the infrastructure is minimal.
Everything can be exported in an excel data pack with M code in case someone would want to reproduce - think Audit ready. And, I also connected to quickbooks on line so someone can directly pull in and manipulate their financials live - I also connected to Fred which carries literally 800k series in terms of macro economic data - i.e. oil prices, inflation, CPI etc and finally to stocks.
I am hoping people find holes in the architecture or any ideas to make this flow a little bit better. It is in progress so if you run into bugs let me know. Considering that I am using my own API key, I have put a wall in case people overuse it but DM me if you would like to continue using, I can turn off the wall for you - hoping to keep that to a small number of users if I can and will do my best. Thank you again, appreciate you taking the time.
adityamishra24121 hours ago
The local-first approach is interesting, especially for finance workflows. Being able to save a workflow and rerun it later without involving the LLM again is a nice touch. Curious to see how this evolves.
kdautajop21 hours ago
Thank you. In finance, from my personal experience, no one wants to re-build anything. Once someone creates a workflow, they should be able to re-run it next month. For example, if you build a monthly operating variance report from your quick books, next time, you should just click re-run.
hackernud3s8 hours ago
Are you talking about Lovable? I don't see it.
kdautajop8 hours ago
Sorry for the delay, had to put my 15 month old to sleep yes, Lovable - I spelled it “Love-able” on purpose-ish since the architecture is different. Lovable builds you an app; this builds a workflow. The LLM plans the steps once (based on file schema), then the actual math runs as SQL in duck-db wasm in your browser. Next month you simply upload the revised file and hit re-run - same SQL (no add'l tokens needed). The AI can still write bad SQL, but it's all visible on the canvas, so it can be checked and once you save it, then next time it is deterministic. For Finance, the local first (sensitive data), repeatability, and transparency matter quite a bit. I connected Fred (econ data, nearly 800k series), and stocks so folks could try it out without needing to upload their own files (in this case it pulls the info as files, you can see it in the canvas section). Quickbooks is also connected, with other ERPs coming in later as I would need to go thru the hoops to get approvals in place (i.e. from Xero, Sage, etc.). I completely get your point though, in terms of it does not feel the same as Lovable. Maybe that is something that I can think through in more detail. Thank you for the comment. Feel free to let me know of any recommendations. I would really appreciate it.
jon9544hna day ago
I’ll mess with it!!
kdautajopa day ago
thank you so much, I really appreciate it
tochihenry2811 hours ago
the local approach makes a lot of sense for tools like this. will try
kdautajop11 hours ago
That was my thought process, especially if it’s used on system of records (i.e. QuickBooks, Xero, Net Suite, Sage, etc.) - that said, on the UI side , unsure if some one should just land on the canvas or if the home page is the way to go , flashier but unsure on usability / will see :) thank you again for taking the time to try it, really appreciate it
SenHeng26 minutes ago
Do you have a blog or something documenting your thought process?
I’m building something similar for cash flow prediction and management and would love to know more.
mnemosynee213 hours ago
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yunicca day ago
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irkdkfkkf2 hours ago
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