In this guide
The customer has said yes. Sales marks the deal as won. Delivery opens the record and finds a proposal, several email threads and a start date nobody has checked.
That is the gap a sales-to-delivery handoff should close. It gives the next owner the agreed scope, the customer’s expectations and the information needed to start, without making the customer explain everything again.
This checklist is for businesses where a sale triggers implementation, onboarding or a scheduled job. Use it for a defined transfer of responsibility, not as another document that gets attached and forgotten.
Define what ready to hand over actually means
An accepted quote, a signed agreement, a received deposit and a confirmed start date are different events. Decide which conditions your business requires before delivery can begin. Do not let one “closed won” status stand in for all four.
For a project, the delivery owner may need an approved scope and capacity check. For an installation, access arrangements and materials may matter. For software onboarding, the next step may depend on a named customer administrator. Choose conditions that match the work.
Commercial acceptance: [evidence and date] Required agreement: [signed / pending / not applicable] Required payment: [verified / pending / not applicable] Delivery capacity: [confirmed by whom] Customer dependencies: [received or outstanding] Ready to start: [yes / no, with reason]
Keep the record accurate when work is sold but not ready. A visible “awaiting customer information” status is more useful than a project that looks active while nothing can happen.
Write a brief that separates promises from assumptions
Link to the final agreed quote or contract. Then summarise the details the receiving team needs to act. The summary should help people find the agreement, not replace it or quietly change its terms.
Customer and project: [record links] Customer contact and decision-maker: [names and roles] Agreed scope: [deliverables and source document] Explicit exclusions: [what is not included] Customer objective: [their stated priority] Dates promised: [confirmed commitments and source] Dates proposed: [not yet confirmed] Dependencies: [access, information, approvals or materials] Open questions: [question, owner and due date] Commercial exceptions: [approved variation and approver]
“They need it quickly” is not a delivery date. “Sales mentioned a possible integration” is not an approved deliverable. Flag uncertainty rather than turning informal conversation into a promise.
If a customer request exceeds the agreement, give it an owner for clarification. Do not bury it in a note and expect delivery to absorb the extra work.
Find the broken handoff in your revenue journey.
Make the receiving owner accept the handoff
Sending a notification is not the same as transferring responsibility. Assign a named receiving owner and ask them to accept the brief or identify what is missing. Keep the sales owner responsible for coordinating the handoff until that happens.
Agree a realistic review target and a backup when the owner is away. If nobody accepts the record, it should appear in an exception queue rather than disappear into a shared inbox.
Receiving owner: [name] Brief received: [date and time] Accepted or returned: [decision] Missing information: [specific items] Person resolving each item: [name] Next review: [date] Backup or escalation owner: [name]
CRM tasks can support this without a complex new system. HubSpot, for example, lets teams assign tasks, set due dates and associate them with contact, company or deal records. Its documentation notes that tasks without associations do not appear on record timelines. Link the task to the relevant work so the next person can find the context. [1]
Introduce the next person without making the customer start over
Once the owner and next action are confirmed, send a short introduction. State what happens next and what, if anything, the customer needs to provide. Do not send an onboarding questionnaire asking for information already captured unless it needs verification.
Subject: Next steps for [project or service] Hi [name], Thank you for confirming [agreed scope]. [Delivery owner], copied here, will coordinate the next stage. Our next step is [confirmed action] by [agreed date]. We have already recorded [relevant information received]. We still need [specific outstanding item] through [approved channel] before [dependent step]. Please reply here if anything in this summary differs from your understanding. [Name]
Only include a date the receiving team has confirmed. If scheduling is still open, say who will confirm it and when, rather than implying that the work has started.
Use an approved secure method for access and sensitive documents. Do not ask customers to reply with passwords or paste credentials into a general CRM note.
Automate the transfer, with checks for missing information
A useful first automation creates a review task when the required commercial conditions are met. It should link the agreement and brief, assign the right person and flag missing fields. It should not treat task creation as proof that onboarding is complete.
Prevent repeated status changes from creating duplicate projects or welcome emails. Use the source deal or order identifier to recognise work already created. If the integration fails, surface the failure to a person and retain a manual path.
AI can draft a handoff summary from approved source material, but the commercial owner should check it before delivery relies on it. Prices, exclusions and deadlines are particularly important to verify. Missing information should remain marked as missing, not filled with a plausible guess.
Test a complete record, a missing agreement, an unavailable owner, a revised quote and a repeated trigger before switching on the workflow. For an already-started job, an amendment should go through an agreed change process rather than restart onboarding.
Review the first milestone, not just the welcome email
Choose a meaningful first milestone: a kickoff completed, required access verified or an installation slot confirmed. “Welcome email sent” records an activity, not proof that the customer is ready.
At your team review, look at handoffs waiting for acceptance, records returned for missing information and missed first milestones. Separate time waiting on your team from time waiting on the customer or a supplier.
Start with a small set of recent jobs and ask the receiving team which missing details caused extra work. Use that to improve the brief. Do not add ten mandatory fields because one unusual project needed them.
The goal is not a longer checklist. It is a handoff that lets the next person act on what was actually agreed. Once that works manually, decide which reminders and record transfers are worth automating.
A sale is ready for delivery when the agreed scope is accessible, start conditions are checked and a named owner accepts the next action. Automate the reminders after those responsibilities are clear.