The four things to secure before you give notice, and the order that keeps everything running.
Resources / How do I change IT providers without breaking everything?
Get control of four things before you give notice: your domain, an administrator login to Microsoft 365 that belongs to your business, your licences, and your data and documentation. The switch itself is routine work. What breaks things is discovering on the way out that the old provider holds the keys, so check that first, calmly, while everyone is still on good terms.
Domain, admin access, licences, data
When to check who holds them
How long a Microsoft licence transfer can take
Rarely the technical work. The usual problems are about ownership: the domain was registered in the provider's account, the only administrator logins to Microsoft 365 belong to the provider's staff, the licences were bought through the provider and cannot simply be cancelled, and nobody outside the provider knows the passwords to the router or where the backups are.
None of that is necessarily anyone's fault. It is how many providers set things up to make support easy. But it means the business depends on the old provider's goodwill to leave, and that is the position to fix before anything else.
Read your contract's notice period and exit terms first, too. Knowing the date you are working towards makes the rest easier to plan.
Start with the domain, because your website and email both depend on it. Check that your business is the registrant and that the registrant email address is one you receive. For a .au domain, the current registrar sends the transfer code to that address, and moving between registrars costs nothing.4 Our free Domain Checker shows who the registrar is.
Then Microsoft 365. Your business should hold at least one Global Administrator account that is not tied to the provider or to one employee. Microsoft recommends two or more emergency access accounts with that role, set up so they are not associated with any individual, precisely for situations like the last administrator leaving.3
If you cannot do either of these yourself, ask the current provider to set them up. It is a reasonable request, it takes minutes, and it is much easier to ask before you have given notice.
If your Microsoft 365 licences were bought through your provider, they can usually be moved rather than cancelled and rebought. You accept a relationship request from the new provider, the new provider requests the transfer, and the old provider approves it. Microsoft says transfers can take up to 72 hours, requests expire after 30 days, and your user counts and renewal settings carry across.2
Once the new provider has access and the licences are settled, remove the old provider's administrative access. That is done in the Microsoft 365 admin centre, on the Partner relationships page, by removing the old partner's roles.1
Do it in that order. Removing the old provider's access first can leave nobody able to manage the licences in the middle of the move.
Ask, in writing and early, for the things the new provider will need: a list of devices and accounts, the passwords for shared systems such as the router, firewall and wifi, network details, software licences and vendor contacts, and how and where your backups run.
Backups deserve their own question. Find out where they are stored, who pays for the service, how far back they go and how a restore is done. If the backups live in the old provider's systems, agree how they are handed over or kept until the new ones have enough history.
If the provider kept your passwords in its own password manager, ask for them to be moved into one your business owns, and then change the important ones once the new provider is in place. A spreadsheet of passwords sent by email is not a handover, it is a new risk.
Most providers hand over professionally, and a clear written list makes it easy for them to do so.
Plan for an overlap rather than a hard cut. The new provider reviews what is there first, then secures the accounts, then takes over the licences, then moves monitoring and backups across. The old provider's access is removed last, and any passwords they knew are changed.
Tell your team what is happening and who to call from which date. Most of the disruption people fear from a change of provider is really confusion about who to ring when something breaks in the first week.
Pick the switch date with your business calendar in mind. Avoid month-end, BAS week and your busiest trading days, so that if anything needs a second look, it is not competing with the work that pays the bills.
Keep the tone friendly throughout. The old provider knows your systems better than anyone, and a good handover call is worth more than any document.
Set things up from day one so you are never stuck again. The domain and every administrator account in your business's name. Documentation your business can read, not just the provider. Licences you can see in your own admin centre.
Ask for a one-page summary of your setup once a year, covering accounts, devices, backups, licences and renewal dates, and keep it somewhere your business controls. It turns the next handover, whenever it comes, from an investigation into a checklist.
And look for terms that do not lock you in. Our own managed IT runs on 30-day rolling agreements with no lock-in, because a provider should keep you by being useful, not by being hard to leave.
Managed IT in Sydney: What we cover, how support works, and the 30-day rolling terms.
How much should managed IT cost a small business in Sydney?: What small businesses pay per user, and what changes the number.
Free Domain Checker: Check who holds your domain and when it expires, before you give notice.
Control of your domain, a Microsoft 365 Global Administrator account that belongs to your business, a plan for your licences, and written documentation: devices, accounts, shared passwords, network details, software licences and how your backups work.
Usually, yes. Licences bought through a Microsoft partner can be transferred to the new partner: you accept the new partner's request, the old partner approves the transfer, and Microsoft says it can take up to 72 hours. User counts and renewal settings carry across.
In the Microsoft 365 admin centre, go to Partner relationships, select the old provider and remove its roles. Do this after the new provider has access and the licences are settled, then change any shared passwords the old provider knew.
Check who is listed as the registrant. For a .au domain, the transfer code goes to the registrant contact email, and moving between registrars is free. If the provider is listed, ask them to update it to your business before you give notice.
The technical handover is usually a matter of days, with an overlap while the new provider reviews, secures accounts and moves licences and backups. The notice period in your current contract usually sets the real timeline.
Tell us what you have now. We will list exactly what to get from your current provider before you give notice, and how the handover would run. Free 30-minute call, no obligation.
Prefer to talk? Call (02) 9053 8789.
Belivanis Information Systems