Successfully transferring all vendor accounts

Make a spreadsheet. Every vendor, account number, login email, and who owns it. Then go down the list one by one. Boring but it works.

The SaaS stuff is the worst. Half these companies have no real 'transfer' process, they just tell you to cancel and have the new owner sign up fresh. Which is fine until you lose all the invoice history you need.

Who's handling this, you or the buyer's team? That changes everything. We had the buyer's ops person do most of the legwork on the utility accounts and it went way smoother than expected. But I've heard horror stories too.

Don't forget the boring ones nobody thinks about: waste management, pest control, the fire extinguisher inspection company. Those are all under contract and some charge a transfer fee.

Hah, fire extinguisher guy. Ours auto-renewed for a year literally the week before closing. Buyer was not amused.

Check for personal guarantees. That's the part that bit us. Several vendor contracts were in my personal name, and 'transferring' them really meant the buyer had to qualify on their own and I had to get released. Some vendors wouldn't release me at all, so I'm still technically on the hook for 11 months. Make sure your purchase agreement addresses that.

This. We're going through it now on the buying side. Seller thought 'transfer' just meant changing the billing card. It did not.

I just emailed every vendor and asked them to switch the account to the new owner's email, cc'ing the buyer. Took an afternoon. Am I missing something? Do you all have like 200 vendors?

you'd be surprised. Between facilities, IT, marketing, and the actual product suppliers, a mid-size operation can have 100+ active accounts. And at least a dozen will have the login tied to an employee who left two years ago.

Emailed 40 vendors last month. Got 9 replies and two of those were 'who are you again'. Godspeed to anyone who thinks this is a one-afternoon job.

One more thing: put a deadline in the purchase agreement for vendor consent, and a list of 'critical vendors' that must transfer or the deal adjsts. Otherwise you'll be chasing signatures from the buyer's lawyer at 11pm the night before closing.

Also make sure you keep an export of every account's invoice and payment history before you hand over the keys. New owner loves it, and if there's ever a dispute about what was paid pre-closing you'll be glad you have it.

Wait, do you actually need vendor *consent* to transfer, or just to change the contact on the account? Those seem very different and I might have done this wrong.

Depends on the contract. Some have anti-assignment clauses. A supplier agreement our seller had said any change of control required written consent, and the vendor dragged it out for six weeks because they wanted to renegotiate pricing. So yes, actually check the contracts.