1. A database system for automating a business rule, including: a state definition table defining one or more states for a business rule state machine; a state transition table defining (a) one or more beginning states, (b) for each beginning state a corresponding ending state, each of the beginning states and the ending states corresponding to a state in the state definition table, and (c) for each beginning state an event that causes a transition from the beginning state to the corresponding ending state; a database triggers table defining the one or more database triggers, each event identified in the state transition table being associated in the database triggers table with one or more of the database triggers, the database triggers in the database triggers table being disabled except when the business rule is activated; an action table defining one or more actions to be performed on entering one or more of the states identified in the state definition table; and a current state table defining the current state of the business rule state machine when the business rule is activated.