Hand the site over

The usual handover is an email: the site’s live, the login details are below, call if there’s a problem. A year later the domain’s renewal notice goes to the builder’s inbox, and the owner hears her site is down from a customer.

So hand over a pack, not a password. The accounts, in the owner’s name. A routine she can follow without you. A page that says what to call someone for, and who. Then one run-through, with her hands on the phone.

Start with the accounts. Everything the site depends on belongs to the business: the domain, the host, the inbox orders arrive in, the analytics and the code. Each one is in the bakery’s name, and the owner can log in to every one. If you’re the only one who can log in, the business doesn’t own its site. You do.

The bottom of the list says where renewals go: her card and her email, so no notice lands in your inbox. And notice what isn’t in the file: passwords. They live in her password manager. A document gets forwarded, printed and copied, and a password in it is out of anyone’s control. Then she logs in to each account, on her own phone, while you watch. A login nobody has tried isn’t a handover. Once she’s in everywhere, take yourself off, unless an agreement says you stay.

Next, the routine, written for her, not for you. Short lines, in her words, each one something she can do from her phone. Every morning, the bread list. When the hours or a price change, that one line, then a look at the page. On the first Monday, the month’s three numbers, a test order, and the renewal emails.

Make it a list she can tick. The ticks stay when she closes the page and comes back, and each list starts fresh when its time comes round: the morning list each day, the monthly list on the first. Here’s that tested: a tick on the second of November survives a reload, and the list is empty again on the first of December.

Then hand her the phone. She runs the morning routine herself while you watch, and you don’t touch it. Where she hesitates, the guide is wrong, so rewrite that line in her words, there and then.

Last, a short page on when to call, and who. At the bakery it’s the owner’s nephew, who builds websites: a new page, a change to the layout or the order form, or the site not loading. Everything in her routine, she does herself. If a builder stays on call, put it in a short agreement: what’s included, how fast they answer, and how either side ends it.

Accounts in her name, a routine she can tick, and a page that says who to call.