A vendor change often exposes how much business knowledge lived in scattered emails, browser bookmarks, and one person’s memory. The remedy is not a bigger report. It is a compact source-of-truth sheet that identifies the facts and access a new team needs to operate without rewriting the business by accident.
Separate facts, access, and decisions
Put three sections on the sheet. Facts include the approved business name, customer-service phone, actual service area, normal hours, core services, and public URLs. Access includes the owner of each account, the role granted to the business, and recovery contacts; do not put passwords in the sheet. Decisions include active campaigns, current measurement definitions, open corrections, and the next review date.
This separation matters because a login is not a fact and a current campaign is not a permanent business claim. A vendor may have access to a profile, analytics property, ad account, or website editor without owning the underlying asset. The business should know which account is authoritative and who can recover access if a relationship ends.
Build it from evidence
| Record | Evidence to check | Owner |
|---|---|---|
| Public name and hours | Signage, operating schedule, customer-facing pages | Business owner or operations lead |
| Business Profile | Roles, displayed facts, current contact path | Named profile owner |
| Analytics and Search Console | Property access, reporting definitions, tag status | Measurement owner |
| Paid media account | Billing visibility, administrator access, pause process | Budget owner |
| Website | Hosting, domain, editor roles, form routing | Technical owner |
Google’s business guidance is useful here because it asks merchants to represent their business accurately. If the source sheet conflicts with a profile or page, do not let a new vendor choose the more convenient version. Resolve the fact with the person responsible for operations.
Document measurement definitions
Write what the business means by an inquiry, qualified inquiry, appointment, and sale. Include the system that records each step and known limitations. Analytics channel groups describe how traffic arrived; they do not tell a business whether a call was qualified. This distinction helps a new vendor set honest expectations and prevents the team from comparing unlike counts.
Use the sheet in the first transition meeting
Ask the incoming provider to read it and mark missing information rather than rebuilding it from assumptions. The outgoing provider can be asked for specific deliverables: account invitations, campaign exports, change logs, and current creative files. The business should not share a master credential merely because access is needed. Role-based access is easier to audit and remove later.
Keep it living but controlled
Assign one business-side owner and review quarterly or after a material change. Record who changed a fact and why. The source of truth should be easy to read; it is not a dumping ground for every report. A small accurate document gives the business continuity when people, vendors, or platforms change.
Minimum transition worksheet
Use one row per system and require an answer before ending a vendor relationship: what business result does this system affect; who at the business is the named owner; which role does the vendor have; where is billing controlled; what will be lost if access disappears; and how can the owner prove access today? A screenshot or an invitation confirmation may be evidence, but the sheet should describe the evidence rather than store sensitive material.
For example, an agency may manage paid-search campaigns while the business owns the advertising account and its billing profile. The row should state the pause authority and a contact who can approve budget changes. A web analytics row should name the property, the reporting timezone, the events treated as inquiries, and the person who knows whether a form submission actually reached the inbox. This is how the business prevents a dashboard label from becoming an unexamined business fact.
Handover questions worth asking
- Which public claims are time-sensitive, and who approved them?
- Which accounts have an administrator controlled by the business?
- Which tracking definitions changed during the engagement?
- What campaign, experiment, or correction is still in flight?
- What can safely be paused while access is verified?
Do not make the sheet a legal contract or assume every platform uses identical permissions. Its purpose is practical continuity: the business can find its assets, check the public record, and make an informed choice about the next provider.
