Inventory accounts and assets
List the domain registrar, hosting provider, CMS, analytics, Search Console, email services, repositories and paid extensions connected to the website. Confirm which accounts belong to the business and which were created by the previous provider.
Obtain current website files and database backups where applicable. For custom systems, source-code repository access and deployment documentation may also be necessary.
Change access carefully
Do not delete the old provider's access before confirming the new team can administer and deploy the system. Once the handover is complete, remove credentials that are no longer required and rotate shared secrets where appropriate.
Changing developers does not automatically require changing hosting or the domain registrar. Make each change because it solves a problem, not because everything must move at once.
Document what the website depends on
Record scheduled tasks, API integrations, licences, DNS records and unusual configuration. A website can appear self-contained while relying on external services for forms, maps, payments or email.
If the existing system is poorly documented, a technical audit may be the safest first project before major changes begin.
Billing and licence ownership can also surface during a handover. Premium themes, plugins, fonts or SaaS tools may have been purchased through an agency account. Determine which licences transfer and which need to be purchased again. This is easier to resolve before the former provider's access ends. Keep a simple handover record so the next maintenance person does not need to rediscover the same dependencies.