The Systems Brief
Notes from building and running software for small businesses.
Practical, specific, occasionally opinionated. The things I end up explaining on calls, written down once.
Featured. Integrations. 22 September 2026. 7 minute read.
Why your Zapier chain breaks at 2am, and what to do instead
No-code automation is brilliant until it becomes load-bearing. Here’s how to tell when you’ve crossed that line, and what a boring, reliable replacement looks like.
Read the article8 September 2026
WooCommerce
Square and WooCommerce: the five sync problems every store hits
Missing webhooks, WP cron that doesn’t fire, variations that don’t map, and two other things I’ve fixed more times than I’d like.
25 August 2026
AI and automation
Human in the loop: where AI automation should stop and ask
A simple rule for deciding which steps a model can do on its own, and which ones need a person, with examples from real workflows.
11 August 2026
Hosting
SPF, DKIM and DMARC in plain English
Why your invoices land in spam, and the three DNS records that fix it. No acronyms left unexplained.
28 July 2026
Custom software
Buy or build? A simple test for custom software
The 80/20 question I ask on every first call, and the two situations where custom is clearly the right answer.
14 July 2026
Hosting
What I learned moving 500 domains to Cloudflare
Bulk transfers, .au quirks, and the checklist I now use for every domain move.