Show HN: Ekselio – Loveable for Finance Workflows (local first) (gptbeyond.com)
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 wholes 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.
18 comments
[ 0.27 ms ] story [ 32.6 ms ] threadRe: better model… yes, eventually I’ll upgrade – some context though on architecture: currently, the platform connects to Fred (800k economic series), Stooq (market prices), Edgar, and QuickBooks (w/ oAuth). In production, the info will be either solely pulled from a connector (i.e. QuickBooks, Xero, SAP, or other ERPs) or it will be uploaded via the Files panel, and it will not make up numbers (from model memory). That said, for this showing, if the prompt requests something the platform is not connected to, I allowed the model to fill in the numbers (from memory)… “This will not happen in production…” I left it "on" for this showing to see how people use the flow (and get feedback) vs. getting a “no data connection” type of response.
In terms of Claude (the app) vs. Ekselio.. there are a couple of things that make Ekselio different… execution runs in the browser (local first), so no server side data infrastructure, no warehouse, no copy of your ledgers etc - in accounting and corporate finance (the targeted vertical) this would be critical, considering the sensitivities around financial data - think financials, customer pricing (SKU level data), PII, etc. The only thing that leaves the browser is the planning request (column names, and a few anonymized sample rows sent to the LLM, which can be turned off so eventually just column names) – i.e. if you upload GL transaction details in the files panel (or pull it from quickbooks or another ERP via a connector) and then prompt it to build an aging schedule (30 days, 60 days, 90 days outstanding by customer), the schema / column names are sent to the LLM while the execution happens in the browser in your machine (privacy, etc).
The other thing is that you can save it, and next month can re-run it on fresh data with one click, with zero token consumption (and deterministic in execution). Claude code (vs. Claude, the App) can also run locally with local tools but if the results are read or head it to understand the files, those rows leave the machine. Finally, you can export/build model in excel where the workflow SQL (from the nodes) are converted into M Code so it can run in excel with inputs and outputs with a check at the end (workflow output compared to the excel model output (M Code / Power Query)... this is still WIP, as some outputs show up as static right now) – but general idea is to support the workflow output with an excel output kind of like a certificate for audit purposes (i.e. can hand over the files to auditors).
There is also a desktop version that allows you to upload your excel models and it turns them into workflows (with inputs and outputs tying back to the excel model, full circle); desktop only for now as it needs some fire power and running it on a server would defeat its purpose in terms of local first – the idea is that fp&a teams and accounting teams have a lot of institutional knowledge sitting in their monthly excel models (i.e. operating variance reports, warranty reserve calculations, inventory costing, etc) so there is a lot to unlock there, and automate with privacy, repeatability (zero tokens) and deterministic outputs in mind.