A website handover is more than a link to the finished homepage. The person responsible for the site needs to understand what was delivered, who controls the connected services and how ordinary changes will be made. Agree the handover before the project ends so it can be prepared as part of the work, rather than reconstructed when an urgent update is needed.
Record ownership without spreading passwords
List the domain registration, hosting, website administration and other services the site depends on. For each one, record the provider, business account owner, responsible contact and renewal arrangement. Make clear which accounts belong to your business and which are managed under a separate service agreement. A provider name alone does not explain who can authorize a change.
Keep credentials out of a general handover document or shared spreadsheet. Agree a secure way to transfer access and confirm that the intended owner can sign in. Use individual accounts where the system supports them, with access suited to the person’s job. Ask the implementer to explain how access is removed when a team member or supplier stops working on the site.
Identify what is included and what renews
Request an inventory of themes, plugins, forms, integrations and paid services that are important to the site. Record their purpose and who maintains them. Where a subscription or license is involved, note the owner and renewal responsibility without assuming it is included forever because it was present on launch day.
Separate the completed build from ongoing support. The handover should state what maintenance, content changes or troubleshooting are included in any continuing agreement and how additional work is requested. If no continuing service is included, decide who will handle those tasks. Avoid relying on an informal understanding that nobody has written down.
Illustrative handover record
Service: website hosting. Purpose: stores and serves the website. Account owner: the business. Responsible contact: the designated site administrator. Renewal: handled by that account owner under the provider’s current agreement. Support route: the verified provider support channel. Access details: transferred separately through the agreed secure method.
Practice the edits your team will actually make
Choose a few realistic edits for the handover session: update opening hours, replace a service photograph, change a price where appropriate or add a useful article. Ask the responsible staff member to perform one of those edits while the implementer is available. Watching a demonstration is different from being able to repeat the process independently.
Include how to preview the change, save it and confirm it appears on the public page. Discuss any content that is deliberately controlled in a central setting rather than on the page itself. Keep instructions tied to the site’s actual interface and responsibilities, with screenshots or a short recording if they will help the person doing the work.
Check the routes customers depend on
Use the handover to verify forms, booking routes, account access, downloads and purchase flows that belong to the agreed scope. Confirm the receiving inboxes and responsible people. Mark test records clearly and agree how they will be removed or excluded from normal reporting. Do not use a successful homepage load as evidence that every customer journey works.
Ask how backups, restoration and software updates are handled. Record the responsible person, where the relevant instructions live and what evidence of a restore test is available. A backup setting being enabled is not the same as a demonstrated recovery. If that work is outside the build scope, leave it as a named responsibility rather than an implied completed task.
Close the project with an explicit open-items list
Review the agreed scope against the delivered site. Record remaining defects, unfinished content and later improvements separately, each with an owner and decision. This prevents a desired future feature from being confused with a defect in delivered work. Include the date and scope of the checks performed so future readers know what was actually verified.
Keep the handover document somewhere the business can access independently of the supplier. Store approved content, original image files and relevant design assets alongside it where appropriate. Schedule an internal review when staff, providers or subscriptions change, because a handover is only useful while its ownership and contact information remain accurate.
- The business can access the accounts it is meant to own.
- Recurring services and responsibilities are identified.
- The responsible person has completed a routine edit.
- Customer routes and recovery responsibilities are recorded.
- Outstanding items have owners and agreed next steps.
Your next step
Ask your implementer for a handover checklist before the final review. Add the three edits your team expects to make most often and use those tasks in the handover session.
