River
Y CombinatorBacked by Y Combinator
Log InStart Free

Free template

Role Handover Document Template

A sample handover document, plus sheets that track recurring work, open decisions and the accounts and files that expire when someone leaves.

Edit with AIDownload (.docx + .csv)

Free download · No account needed

What you get

Pack of 9 files: 4 documents, 5 spreadsheets

Role Handover Document Template
  • Handover StandardDocument
  • What Expires and WhenDocument
  • Handover DocumentDocument
  • Relationship NotesDocument
  • Task InventorySpreadsheet
  • Recurring Commitment CalendarSpreadsheet
  • Open Items RegisterSpreadsheet
  • Owned Object RegisterSpreadsheet
  • Access and Account ListSpreadsheet
RiverRole Handover Document Template

Owned Object Register

P. Ostrander, Client Operations Manager

Last dayOctober 30, 2026
SuccessorS. Krayem
Objects she owns11
Distinct expiry dates4, and the last day is only one of them

What expires, and when

ObjectWhat deleting the account does to itDeadline
Secondary calendar: Client RenewalsGoes with the owner, and no further transfer is possible afterwardOct 30
Two-factor seed for the supplier portalLost with her phone, so the portal is unreachable by anyoneOct 30
214 Drive files she solely ownsHeld 20 days behind restoring the user, then permanentOct 30
MailboxKept 30 days, then removed unless a hold was applied firstNov 29
Cloud project: merridale-pipeline-devBindings linger up to 30 days and the project can be orphanedNov 29
Group: client-ops@Survives her, and keeps routing mail to nobodynone
Shared drive: Client OpsSurvives, because the organization owns the files rather than a personnone

The column no handover checklist has

A knowledge transfer document is a record of what she knows. This one is a record of what she owns, which is the half carrying a date.

The group and the shared drive earn rows precisely because they never expire. Every object moved into that state is one this register stops having to carry.

Page 1 of 1217 words

How to write a handover document

A handover document is what someone leaving a role writes for the person taking it over. It lists the recurring work, open decisions and key relationships, plus the accounts and files in the departing person's name. A good one gives every item a named successor and a date, and opens with the weeks after the last day. It's finished when the successor has done each task once, not when it's written.

The rule that matters most: don't ask the person leaving to list what they do. Work repeated for years stops feeling like work, so find it in their calendar and other records, then ask what's missing.

A woman in glasses leans over a seated colleague and points at his laptop screen in an open-plan office
The successor does the task while the person leaving watches and helps. Photo: Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

Set the last day and name successors

Start as soon as the departure is known, not in the final week. Write down three facts first: the last day, who takes over each part of the role, and how long the person leaving can be reached afterward. Every other date in the handover counts from the last day.

Name a person for every item, never a team. A team can't be asked on a given morning whether the invoice run happened, but a named colleague can. If nobody is chosen yet, write "unassigned" so the gap stays visible.

Keep the last day light

Treat the last day as a farewell and a laptop return, and set every handover deadline a few days earlier.

Find the recurring work in records, not memory

Ask someone to list their recurring work and you tend to get the few things they think of as their job. Showing them a list works better. Nielsen Norman Group, a user-experience research firm, explains that recognition is easier than recall because it involves more cues1.

Build that list from records:

  • 12 months of their calendar, including private holds and declined invitations
  • Inbox rules, especially any that forward a shared address to them
  • Approval routings in finance, purchasing and HR tools
  • On-call schedules and after-hours messages, which show how often "rare" problems happen
  • Reports and scheduled jobs that run under their name

A full year catches the quarterly and annual work that won't come up during a few weeks' notice. A yearly review kept as a private reminder may be the company's only record of that date. Give each item its next date after the last day, not a cadence: "quarterly" describes a meeting, but "January 15" is a job someone can own.

Note who organizes each recurring meeting. Google's documentation warns that if you delete or suspend a user without handling their events, the events no longer have an organizer who can change or cancel them2. Its event transfer moves only future, non-private events with at least one guest or resource, like a meeting room, so a solo reminder never makes the trip.

List what they own, with real deadlines

Every handover has two halves. What the person knows can be written up late and still help. What they own has deadlines, and most of them start when the account is deleted, not on the last day.

Google's admin help is blunt: data owned solely by the user that isn't transferred before deleting their account is permanently deleted3. Microsoft keeps a removed user's mailbox data for 30 days. It keeps the mailbox longer, as an inactive mailbox, only if a hold was applied before the account was deleted4.

What happens to owned items when the account is deleted

ItemWhat happensWhat to do first
Google Drive files only they ownKept 20 days, reachable only by restoring the user, then deleted for goodMove them to a shared drive, which the organization owns
Secondary Google calendarsDeleted with their owner, and no transfers are possible afterwardTransfer them while the account exists
Microsoft 365 mailboxKept 30 days, then permanently removed unless a hold was applied firstTo keep it, apply a hold and confirm it
Google Cloud projectsThe user's permissions linger up to 30 days, and projects can be orphanedAdd a second owner
Vendor logins and two-factor codesNo admin console covers them, and password resets go to a dead inboxMove them to a role address and a shared authenticator

Per Google's and Microsoft's documentation, October 2026. Vendors change these rules, so check your admin console.

Order matters. Confirm any hold first, get shared passwords and two-factor codes off personal phones and vaults next, and delete the account last. Shutting off access is a separate job, covered by an employee offboarding checklist.

Write the handover document for the successor

Write it to the successor, in the second person, as instructions they can follow. "You check the delivery log against the invoices on the last working day" can be acted on. "Priya reconciles invoices monthly" describes someone who has left.

What goes in a handover document, in order

SectionWhat goes in it
The first three weeksEvery meeting, deadline and expiry after the last day, in date order, with an owner
Work nobody mentionedTasks found in the records, and what breaks while each one is unassigned
Decisions in flightEach open item, with what was actually said or promised
Key relationshipsWho really decides, the history they remember, what they're sensitive about. Nothing you wouldn't say to their face
What they ownThe few accounts and files with the costliest deadlines
What's unfinishedTasks the successor couldn't practice, items with no owner, and the fallback for each

Give promises made out loud their own lines. A credit offered on a call or a rate agreed in a hallway is remembered by the other side and recorded nowhere on yours. Confirm each one in writing, or withdraw it, before the last day.

ExamplePart of a sample handover documentAn illustrative example written for this guide. Names, dates and amounts are made up.

November 6: contractor timesheets. You approve these every Friday in the finance tool. Until finance moves the approval from me to you, contractors don't get paid.

Ardenne Foods overage dispute. On a call on October 16, I offered a credit of up to $2,000 on the November invoice, subject to finance. It isn't in writing. Confirm or withdraw it by October 28.

  • Dated, with an owner. The successor sees what happens on November 6, and who acts.
  • The promise, quoted. Amount, date and condition are all on the page.

Hand over by doing, then check

Count a task as handed over only when the successor has done it once, on a real occurrence, while the person leaving can still answer questions. Reading the write-up doesn't count, and neither does watching. Some of Google's site reliability teams end on-call training this way, with a reverse shadow: the newcomer owns the incoming escalations while an experienced engineer watches5 and helps.

Schedule practice runs by next occurrence, soonest first. A weekly task offers a few chances before the last day, while a quarterly one may offer none. For those, record a walkthrough, turn it into a written procedure, and name who will answer questions on the day.

Flag any task only the successor can now do. The risk has moved, not gone, so add it to your business continuity plan.

Internal moves need a deliberate check: nothing expires, so the person keeps old access and gains new unless someone looks. NIST, the US standards agency, gives transfers their own security control, calling for a review that confirms the ongoing operational need for current access6 whenever someone is reassigned.

Before the last day

  • Every recurring commitment has a next date and a named successor
  • Every open decision has an owner who is staying
  • Every spoken promise is in writing or withdrawn
  • Every owned item has a deadline, a new home and any hold confirmed
  • Each practiced task has the date the successor did it
  • Unfinished work is listed, with a fallback for each item

For a faster start, choose Edit with AI above and send River the calendar. It finds the recurring work and dates what the person owns. Afterward, record the new owners and meeting chairs in your operations manual.

How to use this template

Use the files as they are, or open them in River. River asks for 12 months of the departing person's calendar, their last day and their successor, plus any inbox rules or approval routings you have. It builds the recurring commitments and task list from those records, dates each item the person owns, then asks what's missing. Where it isn't sure of a vendor's rule, it leaves a question instead of a date.

  1. Download it or open it in River

    Download the four Word documents and five CSV sheets at no cost, or choose Edit with AI to open them in River.

  2. Start from the calendar

    Export 12 months of the departing person's calendar, or send it to River, and fill the commitment and task sheets.

  3. Ask what's missing

    Show the person leaving what the records turned up, ask what's missing, and put a successor and date on every row.

  4. Work the earliest deadline first

    Move whatever expires soonest, book a practice run of each task, then write the handover document from the sheets.

What's in the template

One departure, eleven owned objects, four expiry clocksThe commitments were read out of a calendar rather than asked for. The objects carry vendor deadlines rather than the last day.
Role Handover Document Template
RiverRecurring Commitments

Recurring Commitment Calendar

Illustrative rows for a fictional 45-person data consultancy, Merridale Analytics. Every row below was found in a calendar, not named in an interview.

SeriesCadenceOrganizerNext after Oct 30Survives?Action
Client status call, Hollis GroupWeekly TueP. OstranderNov 3NoReissue from a shared calendar
Vendor true-up, Ardenne FoodsQuarterlyP. OstranderJan 15NoReissue, the client believes it is booked
Data processing agreement reviewAnnual Feb 12P. OstranderFeb 12NoRecreate, nothing else records this date
Client QBR, Ardenne FoodsQuarterlyArdenne FoodsNov 20YesExternal organizer, so invite the successor
Client Ops standupDailyShared calendarNov 2YesNone, a resource calendar organizes it
Contractor timesheet approval blockWeekly FriP. OstranderNov 6NoNot a meeting, it is an approval routing
Renewals working sessionEvery two weeksP. OstranderNov 5NoAlready dormant, cancel rather than reissue

The annual review on February 12 is the row that justifies the whole method. It falls fifteen weeks after her last day, it exists nowhere but a private hold on her calendar, and she will not mention it because it has come around four times and never needed discussing.

Organizer is a column because it decides survival. A series she owns dies with her account. The same meeting organized by the client, or by a resource calendar, holds without anyone touching it, and the only job left is inviting the successor.

The Friday approval block looks like a meeting and is not one. It moves to the Task Inventory, because reissuing the invite would leave the routing still pointing at a dead account.

RiverTask Inventory

Task Inventory

Found in is a column, so every row can be traced back to the evidence that produced it.

TaskFrequencyFound inShe named itSuccessorValidated
Client status pack, Hollis GroupWeekly MonCalendar seriesYesS. KrayemOct 12
Renewal chase, three Nov accountsAd hocShe named itYesS. KrayemOct 20
Invoicing reconciliationMonthly, last working dayCalendar seriesYesS. Krayemnot yet
Vendor true-up, Ardenne FoodsQuarterlyCalendar seriesNononenot yet
Contractor timesheet approvalWeekly FriApproval routing in financeNononenot yet
Escalations from the client aliasAd hocInbox rule forwarding to herNoS. Krayemnot yet
Data processing agreement reviewAnnual FebPrivate hold, no attendeesNononenot yet
Overnight pipeline recoveryIrregularPager rotation and 14 after-hours messagesPartlyD. Anandnot yet

Four of eight rows were never named by the person doing them. That ratio is the argument. She is not withholding anything, she has simply stopped registering the work as work, and no interview technique fixes that.

Overnight pipeline recovery is the most interesting disagreement on the sheet. She described it as rare. Six months of after-hours messages put it closer to every two weeks. The row records the message count so the successor plans for the frequency rather than the recollection.

Validated holds a date, not a check mark. It means the successor performed the task once, on a real occurrence, while she was still reachable.

RiverAccess and Accounts

Access and Account List

Two people, two triggers. One is leaving; the other is moving internally, where nothing expires at all.

PersonTriggerSystemVerdictEffectiveNote
P. OstranderLeaving Oct 30Microsoft 365Retain as inactive mailboxindefiniteHold confirmed applied Oct 22, before any delete
P. OstranderLeaving Oct 30SalesforceFreeze, do not deleteOct 3040 report definitions break on deactivation
P. OstranderLeaving Oct 30Ardenne supplier portalRe-registerOct 28The only credential the company holds for it
P. OstranderLeaving Oct 30Finance toolReassign approverOct 24Nothing approves while the routing points at her
P. OstranderLeaving Oct 30Google WorkspaceRetain, then deleteNov 19The transfer has to finish or the delete rolls back
T. BelloInternal move Nov 1Finance toolReviewNov 1Keeps the old approval right and gains a new one
T. BelloInternal move Nov 1Client Ops shared driveReviewNov 1Still holds records from the role he left

Freeze, do not delete is a verdict, and a flat transfer-or-revoke list cannot express it. Deactivating the user takes forty saved reports down with her, so the account is frozen, the reports are reassigned, and only then does the deletion run.

The two internal-move rows have no deadline and that is exactly the problem. T. Bello loses nothing on November 1. He accumulates. Every right from Client Ops stays live alongside everything Delivery grants him, indefinitely, unless a person deliberately looks at each row.

Confirmed by is a name, not a checkbox. An unconfirmed row on October 30 is a live account nobody has looked at.

RiverOpen Items

Open Items Register

In-flight decisions, each with a named owner for the day after she goes, or an honest gap.

ItemWhere it standsDueOwner after Oct 30If it slips
Ardenne overage disputeShe offered a credit on a call, nothing in writingOct 30S. KrayemThe client records the offer and we do not
Contractor rate increaseApproved verbally in SeptemberNov 4unassignedInvoices arrive at a rate no order carries
Pipeline alert thresholdShe raised it in July and told nobodynone setunassignedAn outage inside the old threshold goes unalerted
Hollis Group scope changeWaiting on their legal team since Oct 14Nov 7S. KrayemQ4 revenue recognition moves a month
Ardenne security reviewQuestionnaire sent Sep 9, silent seven weeksoverdueS. KrayemThe annual deadline passes with no evidence on file
Ardenne renewal paperworkSigned by us, awaiting counter-signatureNov 14S. KrayemAuto-renewal applies on the old pricing
Analyst hireTwo candidates at final stageNov 3S. KrayemBoth go cold and the role reopens in January

The top three rows are commitments that exist only as speech. A credit offered on a call, a rate approved verbally, a threshold changed quietly. Each needs a confirm-or-withdraw date on or before the last day, because the counterparty remembers all three and no system of yours records any of them.

Unassigned is written down rather than filled in. Two rows have no owner because no owner was agreed, and a register that quietly assigns them to the successor converts a real gap into a false record of a handover that happened.

If it slips is the column that gets these prioritized. A revenue recognition slip and a cold candidate pipeline are not the same size of problem.

  • Handover StandardThe four rules a finished handover meets, and the five conditions that mean it's done.
  • What Expires and WhenHow calendars, files, mailboxes, logins and cloud projects expire when an account is deleted, and the order to work in.
  • Handover DocumentA filled-in example for a client operations manager, with dated items first and unfinished work named.
  • Relationship NotesThe four things worth recording about each key contact, with sample entries and what to leave out.
  • Task Inventory sheetEach task, where it was found, whether the person leaving named it, and when the successor did it.
  • Recurring Commitment Calendar sheetEach recurring series, who organizes it, whether it survives account deletion, and its next date after the last day.
  • Open Items Register sheetDecisions in flight and spoken promises, each with a new owner, a due date and the cost of slipping.
  • Owned Object Register sheetEverything the person owns, from calendars to cloud projects, with what deletion does to it, the deadline and the successor.
  • Access and Account List sheetEach system's access with a verdict, an effective date and who confirmed it, including Review for internal moves.

Common questions

What should a handover document include?

A handover document should include the role's recurring work, open decisions, promises not yet in writing, key relationships, and every account and file the person leaving owns. Each item needs a named successor and a date. Lead with the three weeks after the last day and close with what's unfinished, so the gaps are visible.

When should a handover start?

As soon as the departure is known. The person leaving needs time to confirm a list built from records, and the successor needs real occurrences of each task to practice on. Weekly tasks come up several times before the last day, but monthly ones may come up only once.

What if there is no successor yet?

Name an interim owner for each item, a person rather than a team, and mark anything without one as unassigned. Write the steps out, record a walkthrough of each task, and agree how long the departing person can be reached, and how. Then give the eventual hire the handover document alongside their onboarding plan.

How do you know a task has been handed over?

A task is handed over once the successor has done it themselves, for real, while the person leaving is still around to help. Reading the notes or watching a demo doesn't count. Record the date it happened. For tasks that won't come up before the last day, say so plainly and name who the successor can call.

How is a handover document different from an offboarding checklist?

An offboarding checklist covers the exit itself: closing access, collecting equipment and settling final pay. A handover document moves the person's work: recurring tasks, open decisions, promises, relationships, and the accounts and files they own, each to a named successor. Finish the handover's transfers before anyone deletes the account, because deletion starts the expiry clocks.

Is this role handover template free?

Yes. Download the four Word documents and five CSV sheets with no signup. The sheets and the sample handover come filled in for a made-up company, so you can see how each one works before you clear it. Edit with AI opens the same template in a free River workspace.

What does Edit with AI do?

It opens the template in a free River workspace and asks for 12 months of the departing person's calendar, the last day and the successor. River fills the sheets from those records and dates each item the person owns, leaving a question where a vendor's rule is unclear. Then it asks what's missing and which deadline to work on first.

Sources

  1. Nielsen Norman Group. “Memory Recognition and Recall in User Interfaces.” nngroup.com (opens in a new tab)

  2. Google Workspace Help. “Cancel or transfer events or secondary calendars before deleting a user.” knowledge.workspace.google.com (opens in a new tab)

  3. Google Workspace Help. “Delete or remove a user from your organization.” knowledge.workspace.google.com (opens in a new tab)

  4. Microsoft Learn. “Learn about inactive mailboxes.” learn.microsoft.com (opens in a new tab)

  5. Google SRE. “Google SRE Onboarding Guide with a Suggested Learning Path.” sre.google (opens in a new tab)

  6. NIST. “Security and Privacy Controls for Information Systems and Organizations.” nvlpubs.nist.gov (opens in a new tab)

Written by

Chandler Supple

Co-founder & CEO, River

Chandler has spent the last six years working in AI, building tools for millions of users and Fortune 100 companies. In 2025, he co-founded River to build a new kind of operating system for AI agents.

LinkedInGitHubX

Reviewed by

Brian Joseff, Co-founder, River

LinkedInX

Related tools and templates

More free templates