Build the lookup tool from table names while the data stays put

sweetmelon team · Finance

Your finance system got replaced last year, and people still need to look things up in the old one. The vendor quoted a date for a lookup tool and that date keeps moving. Meanwhile the records themselves can't leave the building. You don't have to send the data anywhere. Ask an AI how to list the table names and columns in the old database, run that yourself, and paste back the structure. From names alone it can work out how the tables relate and write a clear spec for what the tool should do, which you hand to an AI that writes code. Every actual record stays where it is. Before you let anyone else near it, run a few scrubbed records through and see whether the results match what the old system shows. A tool designed from column names alone tends to be right about the shape and wrong about the edges. You get something colleagues can search in a couple of weeks instead of a couple of quarters, including the scanned invoices and checks they usually call you about. Keep a list of what people ask for and fix the next batch.