Ask HN: Graduating from gsheets without going full ERP

2 pointsdundercoder2 years ago4 comments

I have a friend who is outgrowing his Google sheets financial system (many many scripts) and as a former Python developer (been in management recently) I thought “Oh let’s do a proper business rules/state engine” then I remembered how bad I am at UI and how much actual work that would be from scratch.

What’s out there now with a decent drag/drop UI, backed by a real dbms, that has good business rules for a one or two person show that isn’t necessarily a black box? Maybe if ms access had a grandchild that was a prodigy (and wasn’t written by Microsoft TBH)

hisamafahri 2y

If I were to really invest in dbms, and only able to read-only the data (analyze, query, etc) something like Metabase is my go to choice (https://www.metabase.com).

If I also need update the data itself, internal tools builder like Retool (https://retool.com) probably good enough.

But, it all depends on the use case.

dundercoderOP2y

Have you used retool? What was your experience?

alex_tailor 2y

I think BznsBuilder could be a perfect fit for your friend's needs. With its business rules and workflow automation, it can help your friend manage their business effectively without going full ERP.

8organicbits 2y

I'd start here: https://alternativeto.net/software/microsoft-access/

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