Moving sensitive financial data off Microsoft Access, safely
Database Administrator · American Equity Funding, Inc. · Remote · Aug 2023 — Oct 2024
American Equity Funding's investor and financial records lived in legacy Microsoft Access files easy to corrupt, hard to secure, and risky for non-technical staff to touch. I migrated that data into PostgreSQL and built a Java desktop application, backed by Spring Boot and Spring Data JPA, that lets staff work with the records through safe, validated forms instead of raw tables.
The problem
The company ran on Microsoft Access. As the data grew, that became a liability: Access files are fragile, easy to overwrite, and difficult to lock down. This was a real concern for sensitive investor and financial information.
Non-technical staff still needed to read and update records every day. Letting them edit raw tables risked silent data corruption and exposed data that should have been access-controlled.
What I built
- 1
Migrate the data into PostgreSQL
I moved the legacy Microsoft Access workflows into a proper relational PostgreSQL schema. Including a durable, queryable backend built to preserve integrity instead of a loose collection of Access files.
- 2
Build a guarded Java desktop tool
I built a Java desktop application backed by a Spring Boot + Spring Data JPA layer over PostgreSQL. Staff interact through validated forms and controlled actions, never raw tables, so updates are safe by construction.
- 3
Protect integrity & security
Input validation, controlled access, and safe update paths keep the financial records correct and protected, while still letting non-technical employees get their work done without a developer in the loop.