Learn / guide

Learn · Guides

Handover document: capture what someone knows before they leave

When a long-serving person leaves, retires or goes on extended leave, the risk isn't the tasks you can see. It's the things only they know: the workaround for the supplier portal, why one customer is invoiced differently, which report the bank actually reads. A good handover document captures that, and the old system and the overtime-heavy reports usually need attention at the same time.

This guide covers three jobs that tend to land together: capturing the person's knowledge, moving data out of the old system and automating the reports that eat everyone's evenings. AI tools help with all three, as long as a person checks the result.

Start early: weeks, not the last afternoon

Most handovers fail because they're written in the final week, as a list of tasks. By then the person is busy finishing work, and the judgement behind each task never gets written down.

Start as soon as you know someone is leaving, or better, before anyone is leaving: a handover document is just as useful when someone takes four weeks' leave. Give the person time in their week to do it, and name who's receiving each part.

What to include in a handover document

Keep it to things the next person will actually look up. A practical structure:

  • Responsibilities and calendar: every recurring task, with how often and when (daily, weekly, end of month, end of financial year).
  • How each task is done: step by step, with where the files and systems are.
  • Exceptions and judgement calls: “If the supplier invoice is over the PO, I ring Sam before approving.” This is the part that usually goes missing.
  • Work in progress: open jobs, promises made, deadlines and who's waiting on what.
  • People: key customers, suppliers and internal contacts, and what each relationship needs.
  • Systems and access: which systems they use and what they're used for. Transfer account ownership; never write passwords into the document.
  • Reports they produce: who reads each one, where the numbers come from and how long it takes.

A useful test: could someone competent but new run this role for a month using only the document and the people listed in it?

Use AI to capture what the person knows

Writing is the slow part, so let an AI assistant do the writing while the person does the explaining:

  1. Record walkthroughs. Ask permission first and say how recordings will be stored and used. Have the person share their screen and talk through each task as they do it.
  2. Turn transcripts into steps. An assistant converts a rambling walkthrough into numbered steps, a list of exceptions and a list of open questions.
  3. Interview for the gaps. The assistant drafts follow-up questions; the person answers them in a short second session.
  4. Have the person review it. They correct what the assistant got wrong. Don't skip this: the assistant only knows what it was told.

Example request to an AI assistant

“Here's the transcript of Jo walking through the end-of-month supplier reconciliation. Write it as numbered steps a new person could follow, list every exception or judgement call Jo mentions, and list the questions I should ask Jo to fill any gaps. Use only what's in the transcript and mark anything unclear.”

Once the documents exist, a grounded knowledge assistant (often called RAG) can answer staff questions from them with citations, so the knowledge stays usable after the person has gone. Our free RAG course → explains how that works in plain English, and What is RAG? → covers when it fits. For plant and operations knowledge, see the free AI in manufacturing course →.

Migrating data from the old system

Departures often expose a system only the leaver really understood, such as an old database, a heavily customised spreadsheet or a desktop accounting file. Move the data deliberately:

  1. Inventory first: what data is there, who uses it, and what has to be kept.
  2. Take a complete export before anything is switched off. The ATO's digital record-keeping guidance specifically reminds businesses to download a complete copy of records before changing software provider.
  3. Map fields from old to new, and have an AI assistant draft the mapping and flag fields that don't match. A person approves it.
  4. Test on a sample, then reconcile the full migration: record counts, totals and a handful of spot checks against the old system.
  5. Keep the old data readable, not editable, for as long as you need it. The ATO says most business records must be kept for 5 years, and the Fair Work Ombudsman says employee time and wage records must be kept for 7 years.
  6. Personal information you no longer need: if the Privacy Act applies to your business (the OAIC explains when it does), APP 11 expects reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify it once it's no longer needed and doesn't have to be kept by law.

This is general information, not legal or tax advice. Check retention periods for your situation with your accountant or the official sources before deleting anything.

Automate the reports that eat overtime

Handover is the best moment to ask whether a report should exist at all, and if it should, whether a person needs to build it by hand. List every report the leaver produces, then for each: who reads it, what decisions it drives, where the data comes from and how many hours it takes.

  • Retire reports nobody reads. Ask the recipients; you may be surprised.
  • Automate the ones built by copying and pasting from the same systems every week: scheduled data refreshes, built-in import tools or an integration, with control totals so errors are caught.
  • Keep a person on the conclusions. An AI assistant can draft the commentary (“sales down 8% on last month, mostly in the northern region”), but someone who knows the business checks it before it goes out.

Our free automate Excel with AI course → walks through mapping a spreadsheet process, documenting formulas and automating the copying step by step. When the reports pull from several systems, AI automation → and AI integrations → are how we usually connect them.

Access and offboarding

Knowledge transfer and access removal go together. ASD's ACSC small business cyber security guide covers the basics; for a departure, that means:

  • Transfer ownership of accounts, shared drives, domains and subscriptions to the business before the last day.
  • Remove or suspend the person's access when it's no longer needed, and record when it was done.
  • Change passwords for any shared accounts they used, and move to individual logins with multi-factor authentication where you can.
  • Collect devices, and check automated jobs or scripts aren't running under the departing person's account.

A handover checklist by week

  1. As soon as you know: agree who receives each responsibility, list systems and reports, and book recorded walkthroughs.
  2. First weeks: record walkthroughs, generate draft steps with an AI assistant, and have the person correct them. Start the data inventory and export.
  3. Middle weeks: the receiver does the tasks while the leaver watches; update the document wherever it was wrong. Test the data migration on a sample.
  4. Final week: transfer account ownership, reconcile the migration, confirm which reports are retired or automated, and agree how to contact the person with questions if they're willing.
  5. After they leave: remove access, keep the old data read-only for the retention period, and load the handover documents into a searchable knowledge base.

Someone important leaving soon?

We help Australian businesses turn what people know into searchable, cited knowledge, move data out of old systems safely and automate the reports that eat overtime.

Capture knowledge with RAGContact Aideveloper

Subscribe
Subscribe