How do I get what is in my head onto paper before handing over my business?

Know-how that lives only in your head leaves with you. BDC advises sellers to document and update standard operating procedures so the company’s operations are more easily transferable to a new owner, and it says buyers ask how easily the business can operate without the current owner. The task feels large, so break it down. Start with what only you do, then work outward to everything a successor would otherwise have to guess.

Keep a log for a month

For a month, note each task you do that nobody else does: pricing a quote, placing an order, settling a dispute with a customer, closing the month. Each entry becomes a short procedure with the steps, the tools, who to call and what can go wrong. Short and specific is more useful than complete and never finished. Review the log with the person most likely to take over, to catch steps you skip without thinking.

Capture relationships and unwritten arrangements

List your key customers, suppliers, landlord, lender and advisers, with the contact person and what each relies on from you. Add every arrangement that exists only as a handshake. BDC’s due diligence guidance asks whether customers leave when the vendor leaves and who actually runs the business day to day, so a written list lets you answer from the page rather than from memory. Ask your lawyer what customer or employee details may be shared before a deal is signed.

Store it where a successor can find it

CRA’s keeping-records page covers record formats, converting paper into electronic files and making backup copies of electronic files. Apply the same thinking to your notes: one location, backed up, with a short index of what is where. Do not leave passwords in a loose document. Ask your lawyer or IT adviser how access to accounts should be passed on.

Test it with someone else

Hand a procedure to an employee and watch them follow it. Fix every place they stop. BDC suggests a buyer may meet key employees to learn their roles, so the people who will remain should already know the procedures. A handover document that nobody else has read has not been tested. The transition period entry explains the term for a seller’s help after closing.