Before selling, make sure the domain, website, listings, social accounts and phone number are owned by the business, list every account and who holds it, and plan a handover that depends on nobody's personal login.

What the buyer is paying for

When a small business is sold, the price covers more than vans, stock and equipment. Much of it pays for the customers who will keep calling.

Those customers arrive through the name, the phone number, the website, the Google listing and its reviews. A buyer expects every one of them to come across on closing day, working.

Many sellers find at this point that several of them do not belong to the business at all. They belong to the owner personally, to a former employee, or to whoever built the website.

Untangling that takes weeks, and the middle of a sale is the worst time to start.

What has to change hands

The sixth is the one sellers forget to list. The number painted on the trucks and printed on years of invoices is often the busiest route to customers, and it may be on the owner's personal mobile plan.

Share sale or asset sale

How the business is sold changes how much has to move.

In a share sale, the buyer takes over the company itself. Accounts registered to the company stay where they are, and only the people with access change.

In an asset sale, the buyer's own company acquires the assets, so each account has to be transferred to it, one at a time.

Either way, anything registered to the owner personally does not move by itself. That is where most of the work lies.

Owned by the business, not the owner

Go through the list and note, for each item, whose name it is registered in and who can log in.

The domain is the usual surprise: registered years ago by the first web designer, or in the owner's own name with a personal email address.

The Google listing may have a former office manager's Gmail account as its primary owner, and the Facebook page a single admin, the owner's personal profile.

Fix these before the business is listed for sale, while the people involved can still be reached.

Who owns the website itself

Paying for a website does not always mean owning it.

In Canada, the creator of a design, text or photograph generally owns its copyright unless they were an employee or assigned it in writing. An outside designer's site may come with only a licence to use it.

Themes, plugins, fonts and stock photographs carry licences of their own, some tied to whoever bought them.

Find the contract with whoever built the site, and ask for a written assignment if it says nothing. Replace anything whose licence will not transfer.

A worked example

A drain cleaning company with three trucks agreed to sell to a larger plumbing firm, and the buyer's lawyer sent a list of questions about its online accounts.

The domain turned out to be registered in the founder's name, with a personal email address he no longer checked. The Google listing's primary owner was a dispatcher who had left four years earlier.

The main number, painted on all three trucks, was on the founder's personal mobile plan. The website's designer had worked alone, with no written contract, using photographs from his own stock library account.

Each was fixed before closing. The domain moved into a registrar account in the company's name, the listing's ownership was recovered through Google's request process, and the number was ported to a business account.

The designer signed a short letter assigning his rights in the site, and the stock photographs were replaced with pictures of the company's own trucks and crews.

On closing day, the handover took an afternoon, worked through from a single list.

The account list

The most useful document in the sale is one page long: every account the business uses online, what it is for, whose name it is in, who can log in, what it costs and when it renews.

It belongs in the sale file beside the equipment list. A seller who produces it promptly looks like a seller with nothing to hide.

Passwords stay out of the document. They are changed at handover, not emailed in advance.

Handover day

Order matters. Add the buyer's people to each account with full access, confirm they can log in, then remove the seller's access and change any shared passwords.

Some transfers take time. A change of owner on a domain can need confirmation from both sides and bring a temporary lock on moving it elsewhere, and a number port is scheduled with the carrier.

Payment processing accounts often cannot simply change hands. If the buyer needs its own, the online store or deposit form has to be switched over on the day.

Customer lists and the seller's own mail

Customer information comes with obligations. Privacy law, federal or provincial depending on the business, allows it to be shared in a sale under conditions, and a mailing list raises anti-spam questions about how each consent was collected.

Those are questions for the lawyer handling the sale, and they are easier to answer when the list records where each address came from.

The seller's own email needs attention too: personal messages in a business mailbox should be moved out before handover.

The counter-case

Not every sale needs all of this.

A business whose accounts are already registered to the company, documented, and looked after by a web company in the company's name needs only the list and a careful handover day.

But a buyer paying for a name and a reputation will want everything that carries them, and every account in somebody else's name is a delay at the worst moment.

Make the business the owner, write it all down, and plan the handover.

Before listing the business

  1. List every online account the business uses.
  2. Note whose name each one is in.
  3. Move personal registrations into the company's name.
  4. Find the website contract and check the rights.
  5. Move the main number onto a business account.
  6. Add a second owner to every listing and page.
  7. Agree the handover order with the buyer.

Step three is the slow one and the one to start first. Recovering a domain or a listing from somebody who has moved on can take weeks, and a closing date does not wait.

Deciding which of these jobs to hand to a professional is covered in the website jobs worth paying for.

Frequently asked questions

Does the website transfer automatically in a sale?

Only what is registered to the company, in a share sale. Anything in the owner's personal name, or a former employee's, has to be moved deliberately.

Which online assets does a buyer expect?

The domain, website and hosting, email, the Google listing and its reviews, social media pages, the phone number, and accounts with history such as Analytics and AdWords.

Does the business own its website design?

Not always. In Canada, the creator generally owns copyright unless they were an employee or assigned it in writing. Check the contract, and get a written assignment if needed.

What should the account list include?

Every account, what it is for, whose name it is in, who can log in, what it costs and when it renews. Passwords stay out and are changed at handover.

In what order should accounts be handed over?

Add the buyer with full access, confirm they can log in, then remove the seller and change shared passwords. Start domains and phone numbers early.

Can the mailing list go to the buyer?

Privacy and anti-spam law both apply, depending on how each consent was collected. It is a question for the lawyer handling the sale, helped by good records.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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