A website handover should leave your business able to operate
Check domain access, editing, recovery and routine responsibilities before the project closes.
The day after a website launches, someone may need to change an opening hour, replace a photograph or find an enquiry. Those are useful handover tests. A folder of technical files does not show that your team can actually perform them.
Start by identifying which accounts your business owns. Your domain registration, hosting, email, payment service and content system may be separate. Record the responsible business contact and recovery method for each without placing passwords in an ordinary project document.
Practise routine changes
Ask the intended editor to update a small piece of content while the developer is available. Let them use the instructions rather than watch a demonstration. If the process depends on a detail that only the developer remembers, add that detail to the handover.
For a booking or quote website, include the staff member who receives requests. They should know how to recognise an incomplete submission, change the receiving account and report a failure. Agree who checks the process after staff changes.
Make recovery concrete
List what is backed up, where the backup is kept and how restoration would be requested. A green “backup successful” message does not establish that an entire site can be restored. Recovery should be tested in an appropriate separate environment.
The ACSC small-business handbook provides a starting point for security and backup discussions. Your support arrangement should name the actual responsibilities for your website.
Define what comes after delivery
Separate an agreed correction period from ongoing content work, platform updates and new features. Ask what happens if a third-party service changes. There is no benefit in discovering after launch that everyone assumed someone else would maintain it.
Our website care and repair service can include a practical handover and ongoing work agreed around the systems your business actually uses.