I've done similar things by manually inserting and updating rows in the database etc to "demo" some process. Like you say it can be useful as a way to uncover

I've done similar things by manually inserting and updating rows in the database etc to "demo" some process. Like you say it can be useful as a way to uncover overall process or UX issues before all the internals are coded. I'm quite open about what I'm doing though, as most of our clients are reasonable.