What a good handover doc contains

Every Mind the Shop project ends with a handover doc. It's the least glamorous deliverable we make and the one clients use longest — because it's the difference between owning your website and renting access to it. Here's what a good one contains, whether we write it or you demand it from whoever builds yours.

1. The keys — all of them

A list of every account the business now runs on: store platform, domain registrar, email platform, analytics, ad accounts — with who owns each (you), who has access (and at what level), and where the passwords live. If an agency owns any of these "for convenience", that's a leash, not a convenience.

2. How to do the ten most common jobs

Not a manual for everything — a plain-English walkthrough of the jobs you'll actually do monthly: add a product, change a price, edit the homepage, post an update, check what sold, export your customer list. Screenshots or a short screen recording beat paragraphs.

3. What's running on autopilot

Every automation, listed: welcome emails, abandoned-checkout flows, review requests, tracking events. What triggers each one, what it sends, and how to pause it. Automations you don't know about are the ones that embarrass you.

4. What to watch weekly — and what to ignore

Three to five numbers that actually tell you whether the shop is healthy (visits, conversion rate, enquiries or orders, email sign-ups), where to find them, and roughly what "normal" looks like for your site. Plus permission to ignore the rest — most dashboards are noise.

5. When to get help, and for what

An honest list of the jobs worth paying for versus doing yourself, so you're never guessing. A good builder tells you where you don't need them.

Why we work this way

Most agencies build reliance; the ongoing retainer is the business model. Ours is the opposite bet: a handover doc good enough that you don't need us — and a shop minded well enough that you come back when you're ready to grow it. We mind the shop until the shop minds itself.

Planning a build? See the packages — every one ends with this doc — or book a free 20-minute call.