Tan Gravam

🏗️ Building modern tools for finance teams.
18 years in SAP FI & TRM. Now building the software I wish existed.
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[Tan Gravam @TanGravam]

Every weekday I post one of these:

- A UI pattern for finance dashboards (Tailwind, copy-paste ready)
- An AI prompt I actually use in finance work
- A SAP shortcut from 18 years on the inside

Save what's useful. Newsletter at https://t.co/gcM0ChBP2l for the weekly digest.

[Tan Gravam @TanGravam]

Most status updates are too polite to be useful.

They report activity:

in progress
making progress
on track

But they hide the harder things:

blockers
dependencies
falling confidence
decisions needed

A useful update should reduce uncertainty, not just prove people are busy.

🚪 From SAP Finance to Solopreneur
🏗️ 12 Apps in 12 Months
What makes updates weak in your team: vague, late, manual, or optimistic?

[Tan Gravam @TanGravam]

SAP Finance taught me something important:

Work usually doesn’t get messy because people don’t care.

It gets messy because:

ownership is unclear
handoffs are weak
dependencies stay hidden
updates sound fine until they aren’t

That pattern exists in enterprise teams and small teams alike.

Busy is visible.
Delivery risk usually isn’t.
🚪 From SAP Finance to Solopreneur
🏗️ 12 Apps in 12 Months

What breaks first in your team: ownership, handoffs, dependencies, or priorities?

[Tan Gravam @TanGravam]

The more I think about it, the more I believe teams do not start too slowly. They usually start too early.

[Tan Gravam @TanGravam]

Many execution problems start before execution.

Teams begin work without clearly defining:

- outcome
- owner
- target date
- dependencies
- confidence

Then they wonder why delivery becomes messy.

Before tasks, every initiative should at least answer those 5 things.

🚪 From SAP Finance to Solopreneur
🏗️ 12 Apps in 12 Months
Which one is usually missing in your team?

[Tan Gravam @TanGravam]

I’m not building another project management tool.

I’m building a clearer way to see delivery.

DeliverySheet is based on a simple idea:

Teams need to connect:
•targets
•initiatives
•owners
•dependencies
•weekly updates

Not just create more tasks.

Busy is visible.
Deliverability usually isn’t.

🚪 From SAP Finance to Solopreneur
🏗️ 12 Apps in 12 Months

What’s missing most in your current setup: clarity, ownership, or dependency visibility?

[Tan Gravam @TanGravam]

One mistake I keep noticing: teams often track work in detail, but not confidence in delivery. That’s where surprises start.

[Tan Gravam @TanGravam]

Most teams don’t have a task problem.

They have a planning realism problem.

Too many teams jump into tasks before they clarify:

- targets
- dependencies
- ownership
- delivery confidence

Then they wonder why status meetings feel vague.

Busy ≠ on track.

🚪 From SAP Finance to Solopreneur
🏗️ 12 Apps in 12 Months

What breaks first in your team: priorities, dependencies, or ownership?

[Tan Gravam @TanGravam]

Today I defined the first workflow for the app:

Company Targets → Department Targets → Initiatives → Components → Dependencies → Capacity → Quarter Commitments → Updates

The big idea:
people should enter small updates,
and anyone opening a project should instantly understand what matters.

Not 14 tabs.
Not detective work.
Just clarity.

[Tan Gravam @TanGravam]

4 layers of planning.

These are the layers I believe a simple planning app needs to track well.

This is the structure I’m using while building DeliverySheet:

Strategy
- Targets

Planning
- Initiatives, components, dependencies, capacity

Execution
- Work packages, tasks, updates

Outcome
- Review

Most tools either overcomplicate this or scatter it across too many places.

I’m trying to make it simple enough that teams choose it over Excel.

[Tan Gravam @TanGravam]

The real competitor is not Asana or Jira for a simple planning and initiative management app

It’s Excel.

Why Excel keeps winning:
- flexible
- familiar
- fast
- everyone knows how to use it

Why Excel loses later:
- no structure
- no clear ownership
- no live status
- no dependency visibility
- no single source of truth

I’m trying to build the middle ground.

[Tan Gravam @TanGravam]

I would like to build a new app for portfolio, initiative, resource, and project management.

Because a lot of teams still plan in Excel, track updates in Slack, and keep decisions in people’s heads.

Existing tools often feel heavier than the problem.

I want to build something simpler:
from targets to delivery, without spreadsheet chaos.

[Tan Gravam @TanGravam]

Day-2:

Haven't gone with any business logic yet,
Made some basic pages like a change log and login,
Included Google login, but have not yet set up any table to make the content dynamic.

Next:
- DB Tables setup,
- Contact page,
- Consent pop-up,
- App dashboard

[Tan Gravam @TanGravam]

Day-1:
A build in public Accounting and Treasury Management App(Liquanta)

Have done:
- App setup,
- Design patterns
- The index page

It can be changed later, but to be able to go faster this is it for now.

Will do more tomorrow and then will go step by step its business part.

We will determine the taxonomies, processes and then for each functionality how it should look like.

[Tan Gravam @TanGravam]

Consulting companies would give you 3 years to build something like this.

They first collect the requirements,
Then underestimate them,
Give you a timeline,
They realise they did not understand your requirements,
They do a new estimation,

Only, some people to understand what your business really requires takes 6 months.

[Tan Gravam @TanGravam]

https://t.co/NNBPivrb7w

[Tan Gravam @TanGravam]

Day-0:

For years as a corporate employee, two thoughts have never left my mind.

1) Job security isn’t permanent:

I’m not saying this to blame companies. At the end of the day, everyone protects their own interests.

Downsizing happens, priorities change, productivity drops, AI accelerates, retirement comes…

At some point, most of us are forced to choose a new direction.

The real question is:

When that day comes, how prepared will we be?

2) What drains you isn’t always the work — it’s the “friction” around the work:

- People who don’t take ownership.

- People who push work onto others.

- Confusing responsibilities.

- Unnecessary processes.

And sometimes the hardest part becomes this:

Having to convince people every day just to move forward.

(Yes, it can build you up — but it also consumes a lot of energy.)

While these thoughts kept running in my head, I tried to live by one approach:

Build instead of blame.

When something goes wrong, instead of getting stuck in “why is this happening?”,

I try to ask: “How can I turn this into action?”

I’ve spent 18 years building Accounting, Finance, and Treasury solutions.

I started as an SAP consultant and continued as an SAP solution architect.

But now it’s time to change something.

I made a decision:

I’m going to produce more — consistently, and visibly.

I’m building a modern Accounting + Treasury Management System and I’ll do it in public (build in public).

I’ll share, day by day, how I progress, what decisions I make, what works, and what breaks.

And you’ll actually be able to try and test it as an application.

If you follow, you’ll see:

- regular build updates (real progress)

- screens + decisions (why I designed it this way)

- practical lessons you can reuse in your own work

I’m not trying to be an influencer.

I just want to build something openly, become more visible through execution, and grow through the process.

Now I want to ask you:

- What do you struggle with most in your work life?

- What would you want to change? And what are you doing to change it?

And if you’re in accounting/treasury specifically:

- Which process is your biggest pain?

- Write it in the comments — I’ll tackle that.

[Tan Gravam @TanGravam]

1/13
You don’t need a complicated sales machine to earn money from your work.

You need something simpler:
a pile of work people can explore until they trust you.