The spreadsheet is not the enemy. It is the system of record nobody wanted to admit they had. Visual search is a new front door, not a new religion.
I start by making the sheet queryable: one SKU column, one location column, one photo column even if it starts empty. Then the app reads SQL, not a downloaded XLSX from last Tuesday.
Replace the ritual, keep the data
The ritual is walk to a desk, open the file, hope it is not locked by someone in receiving. The data can stay in Postgres or even a synced table as long as the phone is the client.
People will forgive a simple UI. They will not forgive a tool that disagrees with the sheet they still secretly trust. Show the same fields. Earn the right to add vision later.
One week, not one quarter
A barcode search against a clean table already saves time. Vision comes after the lookups are a habit. If you ship a model first, you will debug ML while people still cannot search by SKU.
