Python + Excel VBA developer to complete and test a near-finished Excel add-in (xlwings)
Budget / Salary$30–250
TypeFreelance project
LocationRemote
Posted1 hour ago
We have a near-complete Windows desktop application for accountants: a Python engine running behind Excel through xlwings, with an existing Excel front-end, custom ribbon and VBA add-in (.xlam). The core build installs cleanly and is in user acceptance testing. We need an experienced developer to take it over, finish it, and test it properly before every delivery.
WHAT YOU WILL DO
1. Fix UAT defects reported by the end users (report pagination and print layout, Excel window focus, a licence check, and making report templates fully editable, including formulas and rows).
2. Build two features:
- Auto-update: check a Google Drive location for a new release, download, verify, install, roll back on failure.
- AI-assisted classification: two ribbon buttons that suggest account classifications from a reference table using an AI API (DeepSeek), behind a swappable provider interface.
3. Test every build yourself on desktop Excel before delivery, including with Chinese (Traditional, Hong Kong) regional settings, and provide a short screen recording of the test run.
4. Clean up the codebase: remove debug code, dead files and hard-coded paths.
YOU MUST HAVE
- Your own Windows PC with desktop Microsoft 365 Excel. This is essential: all testing happens in real Excel.
- Strong Python, and solid Excel VBA: .xlam add-ins, ribbon XML, events, COM.
- Hands-on experience with xlwings or win32com, and with writing to Excel in bulk, not cell by cell.
- The discipline to test your own work end to end. Builds that fail on first use will not be accepted.
- Good written English, and a few hours of overlap with Indian Standard Time.
HOW WE WORK
- An NDA is signed before any code is shared.
- We start with a small paid trial task on the existing code.
- Fixed-price milestones. Each is paid when the build passes our own test on a clean Windows machine.
TO APPLY, answer these in your proposal:
1. Which Windows and Excel version do you have? (Copy the first line of File > Account > About Excel.)
2. Excel locks an .xlam add-in while it is open. How would you replace it during an automatic update?
3. How would you write 5,000 rows of results and formats to Excel quickly through xlwings?
4. One Excel add-in project you have delivered, and what it did.
5. Start your proposal with the word "Ledger", so we know you read this.
Proposals that skip these questions will not be considered.
WHAT YOU WILL DO
1. Fix UAT defects reported by the end users (report pagination and print layout, Excel window focus, a licence check, and making report templates fully editable, including formulas and rows).
2. Build two features:
- Auto-update: check a Google Drive location for a new release, download, verify, install, roll back on failure.
- AI-assisted classification: two ribbon buttons that suggest account classifications from a reference table using an AI API (DeepSeek), behind a swappable provider interface.
3. Test every build yourself on desktop Excel before delivery, including with Chinese (Traditional, Hong Kong) regional settings, and provide a short screen recording of the test run.
4. Clean up the codebase: remove debug code, dead files and hard-coded paths.
YOU MUST HAVE
- Your own Windows PC with desktop Microsoft 365 Excel. This is essential: all testing happens in real Excel.
- Strong Python, and solid Excel VBA: .xlam add-ins, ribbon XML, events, COM.
- Hands-on experience with xlwings or win32com, and with writing to Excel in bulk, not cell by cell.
- The discipline to test your own work end to end. Builds that fail on first use will not be accepted.
- Good written English, and a few hours of overlap with Indian Standard Time.
HOW WE WORK
- An NDA is signed before any code is shared.
- We start with a small paid trial task on the existing code.
- Fixed-price milestones. Each is paid when the build passes our own test on a clean Windows machine.
TO APPLY, answer these in your proposal:
1. Which Windows and Excel version do you have? (Copy the first line of File > Account > About Excel.)
2. Excel locks an .xlam add-in while it is open. How would you replace it during an automatic update?
3. How would you write 5,000 rows of results and formats to Excel quickly through xlwings?
4. One Excel add-in project you have delivered, and what it did.
5. Start your proposal with the word "Ledger", so we know you read this.
Proposals that skip these questions will not be considered.
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