Settings change all the time in a small business. A delivery price goes up, a tax rate is updated, a new payment option is switched on, a booking page gets new opening hours, or a step is added to an automation.

Most of these changes are fine. Then one day something stops working: orders stop coming through, a price looks wrong at checkout, or bookings land on the wrong day. And nobody can say which change did it.

This guide is a check you can do yourself in about fifteen minutes, without any technical knowledge. You don't change anything. You only look.

Why nobody can say which change did it

It's rarely because anyone was careless. It's because changes are hard to see afterwards:

  • Many people can make them. You, your staff, a freelancer, and the apps and add-ons you've connected can all change settings. So can the tools themselves, when they update.
  • Each tool keeps its own record, if it keeps one at all. Your shop, your booking system and your automations each hold their own history, in different places, for different lengths of time.
  • The problem shows up later, somewhere else. A change to delivery prices on Monday might only show up as fewer orders by Thursday. By then, nobody connects the two.
  • Several things changed at once. If three settings changed on the same afternoon, even the person who made them can't be sure which one mattered.

The 15-minute check

Keep a note of what you find as you go. It's useful whatever the answers are.

1. Find the day it started

Look at your orders, bookings or sign-ups day by day, and find the last day everything looked normal. The first customer complaint is a clue, but the problem often started a few days before it.

Write down the date. Every step after this one is easier with it.

2. List who and what can change your settings

Write down everyone with a login to the system that broke: you, your staff, a freelancer, anyone who helped set it up. Then list the apps, plugins or add-ons connected to it, because many of them can change settings too.

If the list is longer than you expected, that's worth knowing on its own.

3. Look for a history of changes

Many tools keep a record of who changed what, and when. Look in the settings or account pages for words like activity, history, log or versions. Some common places:

  • Shopify: in Settings, then General, open the Store activity log. It shows changes made by people, apps and sales channels, though not every change is recorded there.
  • Google Sheets: open File, then Version history, then See version history, to see who edited the sheet and when.
  • Zapier: open the Zap and look at its Versions panel. Free plans don't keep versions.
  • Make: open the scenario and click the Version history icon. Saved versions are kept for a limited time.
  • n8n: open the workflow's history. Every plan keeps a short history, and paid plans keep more.

Some tools keep no record of settings at all. WordPress, for example, keeps earlier versions of pages and posts, but not of most settings. If your tool is one of these, that's a finding too, and the habit below fills the gap.

4. Ask, with the date

"Did anyone change anything?" usually gets a no. "Did anyone change anything last Tuesday?" gets a much better answer, because it gives people something to remember.

Ask about apps installed or updated as well as settings. Check your inbox around that date too: tools often send an email when they update, or when a new app is connected.

5. Compare with a copy from before

If you have anything that shows how things were before the problem started, compare it with how they are now. A screenshot, an old export, a copy of a spreadsheet, or an old order confirmation showing the price a customer paid can all do the job.

A difference between the two is your strongest lead.

Before anything is changed back

When you find a likely change, it's tempting to undo everything from that week at once. Try not to. If several things are changed back together and the problem goes away, you're back to not knowing which one did it, and it can return the next time someone makes the same change.

Ask whoever looks after your software to undo one change at a time, and to check after each one.

The habit that makes every change easy to undo

The answer to "nobody can say which change did it" is a record that says. It doesn't need any software. A shared spreadsheet or a notebook works.

Each time anyone changes a setting, they add one line:

  • the date,
  • who made the change,
  • what it was before, and what it is now,
  • why it was changed.

Two small habits make the note even more useful. Take a screenshot of the settings page before changing it, so there's always a way back. And change one thing at a time, then check the thing it affects, like placing a test order after changing delivery prices.

If one wrong value could cost you money, such as a price of £0 or a delivery charge of £500, ask whoever looks after your software about a check that stops it from being saved. It's often a small job.

After a few weeks, the note becomes the history your tools don't keep.

What to do with what you found

If everything checked out, well done. Keep your notes, and start the change note today, while everything is working.

If you found something, like a change on the right day, a tool with no history, or more people with access than you expected, you now know exactly what to ask about. Take your notes to whoever looks after your software.

And if there's nobody to ask, I can look at it for you, read-only. Here's an example of the findings note you'd get, written for an example candle shop.