New Owner Tech Handoff Checklist

When ownership or management changes, the paperwork usually covers the building, the equipment and the customer list. The technology is the part that gets a sentence at the end. Yet the website, the phone numbers, the email and the CRM are how customers find you and how you reach them.

None of this is hard. It is a matter of doing it early, while the person who set it up can still tell you where things are.

• The domain name. Find out which registrar holds it and whose email is on the account. If it is a personal address or a former employee, move it to a company address now. If the domain lapses or is transferred, the website and company email stop working.
• Email. Confirm who the admin is for the company email system. You want at least two people at the company who can reset passwords and add or remove users.
• Phone numbers. List every number customers use, who the carrier or provider is, and whose name the account is under. Ask whether any are forwarded to a personal cell phone.
• Website hosting and login. Who hosts the site, who can publish changes and who pays. Get your own admin login instead of sharing someone else’s.
• The payment method on every subscription. Find out which card pays for each tool. A card that expires or belongs to someone who left can shut a service off without warning.

• Follow a lead from first contact. Pick a recent customer and trace how they found you, what they filled out or called, who answered and where their record lives now.
• Find the customer list. Where is it kept? CRM, spreadsheet, accounting software, someone’s email? Who can export it, and when was the last export?
• List every outside vendor. Web, marketing, IT, phone, bookkeeping. For each: what they do, what they cost, how long the contract runs and who your contact is.
• Check the contracts for ownership. Look for who owns the website, the content and the accounts if the relationship ends. Terms vary, so read them or ask someone who can.
• Ask the team what is broken. Front-line staff know which form fails, which number rings nowhere and which tool everyone avoids. Ask them directly.

• Use a company password manager. Every shared login goes in it, under company email addresses. No logins in spreadsheets or in someone’s head.
• Write a one-page systems list. System, purpose, owner, login location, monthly cost, renewal date. Update it when something changes.
• Name an owner for each system. One person at the company who is responsible for it, even if an outside firm does the work.
• Decide what to keep. After a few weeks you will know which tools carry their weight. Only then decide what to replace.

If the answers keep coming back as “I’m not sure” or “the old owner handled that,” that is the signal to get an outside review of how everything is set up, before you spend money building on top of it.