Finance

Build your own finance workflow tool after 20 years in finance

A finance veteran who picked coding back up built a local-first tool for finance workflows as a side project.

By kdautaj on Hacker News · Posted · Added Oct 16, 2026

Difficulty
IntermediateOur rating
Time to build
Not reportedOur estimate
Monthly cost
Not reported
Revenue
Not reportedWe only show revenue the source states
Engagement
43 HN points16 comments · fetched Oct 15, 2026

What they did

kdautaj spent 20 years in finance and M&A, relearned coding, and after ChatGPT and Claude arrived built Ekselio as a side project.

How it went

Launched on HN as a local-first product.

Worth knowing

Domain knowledge is the edge; AI fills the coding gap.

Builder recipe

Our own starting point, written from the source. Adapt it to your setup.

Stack

  • Claude or ChatGPT
  • React + TypeScript

Steps

  1. Connect or export your financial data.
  2. Have the agent categorize and summarize it.
  3. Check the numbers against your statements.
  4. Schedule recurring reports.

Starter prompt

Build a local web app that takes a company’s three statements as CSV and produces a ratio analysis and a one-page summary.

Tags

Industry Finance

Read the original

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