Client offboarding checklist for agencies: hand the accounts back, then remove your access

When a client leaves, hand back before you remove anything. List every account you can reach, check who owns and who pays for each, move what you created into the client's own accounts, then remove your access platform by platform and confirm it in writing. The order matters: moving a GA4 property needs roles on both Analytics accounts, a Google Ads manager that pays on monthly invoicing has to move the billing before it unlinks or the ads stop, and on Meta only the business portfolio that owns an asset can share it.

This checklist is for the agency's side. The client's side, removing an agency that has already gone, is in how to remove an old agency's access.

Before you start: list what you can reach

Write one list per client. For each account, note its name and ID, who owns it (the client or you), who pays for it, your access level, and who at the client is an admin. This list becomes the confirmation email at the end.

Where to look on your side:

• Meta: the Settings of your own business portfolio, where Meta says both businesses can see the assets a client has shared. Note separately every asset your own portfolio created or owns for the client. Also ask whether any of your people were added straight into the client's business portfolio as people rather than through your partner access: those sit in the client's Settings > People.
• Google Ads: the client accounts under your manager account, and any client account where one of your people was invited as a user.
• Google Analytics 4: properties for the client in your own Analytics account, and client properties where your people are users.
• Tag Manager: the accounts and containers on Tag Manager's Accounts screen.
• Everything else: Search Console, Merchant Center, Business Profile, YouTube and any other platform in your onboarding record.

The client can check its own side with how to see who has access to your Facebook Page and business portfolio.

Hand back what you created

Do this while you still have access. Several hand-backs need the access that removal takes away: moving a GA4 property needs roles on the client's Analytics account, and adding the client's people as administrators in Tag Manager or as owners of a Business Profile needs your own admin or owner role.

Meta

Assets your business portfolio owns for the client, such as an ad account, a Page or a dataset (pixel) you created: Meta says "only the organization that owns the asset can share it with another business portfolio." Whether an asset can leave your portfolio altogether depends on the kind of asset: getting assets out of an agency's business portfolio covers each one. Anything that stays in your portfolio, share with the client's portfolio with full control, using Meta's partner steps in your own portfolio:

1. Go to Settings in Meta Business Suite for your business portfolio.
2. Click Partners in the Users section of the menu on the left.
3. Click Add, then select Give a partner access to your assets.
4. Enter the client's business portfolio ID and click Next.
5. Choose the assets and the level of access, then click Assign assets.

Sharing lets the client use and manage the asset, but Meta says a partner with full control still cannot share it with another business, so tell the client which assets stay in your portfolio and why.

The client's own business portfolio. If your people are the only ones with full control there, someone at the client needs full control before you leave. See changing who controls a Meta business portfolio.

Google Ads

1. Give the client an admin. A manager that creates an account becomes its owner, and Google lets admins of the owner manager invite users with administrative access. Make sure a person at the client has Admin: in the client account, go to Access and security in the Admin menu, select the plus button, enter their email address, choose Admin and select Send invitation.
2. Move the billing, if your manager pays. Google says the client account's billing Settings page shows the paying manager. If yours pays on monthly invoicing and the client moves to another agency, an Admin of your paying manager starts the transfer: select the client account from the account picker, select Billing, then Billing transfers, the pencil icon and Change who pays, then External Billing Transfer. Enter the new agency's Manager account ID, the Future payer name and the Transfer date, and select Submit request. Google gives the new agency 7 days to approve, and says the account must then be linked to the new agency's manager account within 7 days of the transfer, or its ads stop. Google says this feature is in beta. Its billing-transfer articles describe moves to another paying manager account; if the client will pay on its own instead, ask Google Ads support how to switch before you unlink.
3. Tell the client what stops. Google says that when an account is unlinked, remarketing lists that rely on your manager's shared tag stop filling in it, and its ad groups that target those lists, and campaigns that exclude them, stop running. Your cross-account conversion tag stops recording conversions for new clicks. Ask the client, or its new agency, to set up its own tag and lists first.
4. Unlink. In your manager account, select the Accounts icon, then the Sub-account settings drop-down. Select the client's accounts, open the Edit drop-down, select Unlink, check the preview and select Unlink again. Google says the account keeps its own campaign history.

Google Ads can ask for a passkey before sensitive actions such as account linking updates or user access changes. If yours is not set up, see Google Ads passkeys before the last week.

Google Analytics 4

A property in your Analytics account. Move it to the client's account. Google says this needs the Administrator and Editor roles on both accounts, so do it before anyone removes your access to the client's account. The reporting data moves with the property, the change history stays in your account, and the tag ID does not change, so the website needs no retagging. Steps: how to move a GA4 property.

A client property where your people are the only Administrators. Add a person at the client as Administrator at account level first. Google says the last user with the Administrator role cannot delete themselves.

Tag Manager

Google's own advice is that a Tag Manager account is managed "by someone in your organization, not an external agency." If the client's container sits in an account your agency runs:

• If that account holds only this client's container, add the client's people under Admin > User Management in the Account column, with Account Permissions set to Administrator, then remove your own people. Tag Manager does not let every administrator be removed, so the client's admins must be in place first.
• If your account holds containers for several clients, export this client's container under Admin > Export Container and give the file to the client, who imports it under Admin > Import Container into a container in its own account. Afterward, check that the client's website loads the container from the client's account.

Business Profile and YouTube

A Business Profile where you are the primary owner. Add a person at the client as Owner under Business Profile settings > People and access, then select them, select Edit next to Access, choose Primary owner and Save. Google says a new owner or manager waits 7 days before managing every feature, including making someone the primary owner, so we suggest adding the client's person a week ahead. Google also says a primary owner cannot remove themselves before transferring primary ownership. Once it has moved, use Stop managing.

A YouTube channel. In YouTube's channel permissions, even the Owner role "Can't transfer ownership to other users". If the channel was created under your agency's account, see how to transfer ownership of a YouTube channel for the route that applies. If you only hold a role on the client's channel, the client's owner or a manager removes you in YouTube Studio under Settings > Permissions with Remove access.

Search Console and Merchant Center

Search Console. If your person verified the client's site with their own token, such as an HTML file or tag, make sure someone at the client is a verified owner before you leave. Google says that if all verified owners are removed, the remaining users lose access after a grace period. After your person is removed, delete their tokens from the site: Google lists them under Unused ownership tokens, and says a removed owner can verify again until they are gone.

Merchant Center. Before your person is removed, check that the client's website verification is not tied to them. Google says that removing that person also loses the verification and the claim, and they have to be done again with someone else.

Remove your access

Once everything is handed back, remove your access, one platform at a time:

• Meta: the client removes your business under Settings > Partners, then Options > Remove from business portfolio > Remove partner, which needs full control of its business portfolio. Your people added straight into the client's portfolio are removed under Settings > People. See removing someone from a business portfolio.
• Google Ads: unlinking your manager account removes your link. Your people invited as users are removed with Remove access under Access and security.
• Google Analytics 4: under Admin > Access Management, select the check box for each of your people and click REMOVE. This needs the Administrator role at account level.
• Tag Manager: under Admin > User Management, select each of your people, select Remove, then Save. Google's steps describe Remove as taking away the user's access to the current container, so check the User Management list of the account and of each container afterward.
• Search Console: an owner removes your people under Settings > Users and permissions with Remove access.
• Merchant Center: Google lets you remove yourself under People and access by selecting Manage. An admin can only do so if another admin is already on the account.
• Other platforms: the access checklist links a guide for each one, including LinkedIn, TikTok, Shopify, Microsoft Advertising and Klaviyo.

Then send the client the guide to removing an old agency so it can confirm every list from its side.

Billing and payment methods

Google Ads on your monthly invoicing: see the billing step above. Do it before you unlink.

Your payment method on a client's Meta ad account. The client adds its own payment method first: Meta says that to remove a default payment method and keep advertising, you add another one first. Meta also says that if ads are still running, you pause them and clear any outstanding balance with Pay now before removing a payment method, and allow up to 48 hours after pausing. Agree a short pause with the client. Then go to Billing & payments. With one ad account, click Payment settings; with several, select the ad account in Accounts, then click Payment methods. Click Options next to your payment method and select Remove. In a business portfolio this needs full control of the ad account.

Your own invoices. Send the final invoice, and stop any subscriptions you pay for on the client's behalf, such as reporting tools, on the date you agree.

Reports and dashboards

• Conversion tracking. If the client relied on your manager's cross-account conversion tag, Google says it stops recording conversions for clicks after the unlink, and keeps counting earlier clicks for the conversion window, which Google says is typically 30 days. If the client had its own tag on the site before, Google says it resumes tracking.
• Reports in your own tools. Dashboards that read the client's accounts through your access can stop updating once that access is gone. Export what the client will want, such as the last report and the history behind it, and say which dashboards will stop.
• Notes and documents. Hand over the campaign notes and naming conventions the next team needs.

The confirmation email

Send one email that lists what happened, in the client's terms. A template:

• Subject: Handover of your marketing accounts, [date]
• What we handed back: for each account, its name and ID, what changed (for example "shared with your business portfolio with full control" or "moved to your Analytics account") and the date.
• What we removed: each account where our access is gone, and the date.
• What stays, and until when: any access you asked us to keep for a hand-over period, with its end date.
• Billing: the date our payment method or invoicing stopped on each platform, and what pays from now on.
• What changes for you: remarketing lists, conversion tracking or reports that stop or need a new setup.
• Where to check: in Meta Business Suite, Settings > Partners and People; in Google Ads, Access and security, including Managers; in Analytics, Access Management; in Tag Manager, User Management.
• Attached: the exports and documents listed above.
• Questions: who to contact, and until when.

Keep a copy with your client record.

If you worked under another agency's brand

If you worked as a freelancer or subcontractor for another agency, your access may have come through that agency rather than from the client. On Meta, for example, a partner business assigns its own people to the assets a client shared with it, and with partial access it can only give them the tasks the client gave the agency. Your access then sits in the lead agency's business portfolio. In that case:

• Hand your list and your work to the lead agency, not to the end client, unless the lead agency asks you to.
• Ask the lead agency to remove you from its business portfolio, manager account and other accounts. For Meta, see if you are the one leaving.
• Hand over anything you created with your own accounts, such as a Google Ads account opened with your Google Account or a container in your own Tag Manager account, to whoever holds the client relationship.