Changing your Amazon agency: an account handover checklist

Changing an Amazon account-management provider is an operational handover, not just a new login. Orders, buyer messages, catalogue changes and financial exceptions can remain active while responsibilities move between teams.

This checklist is for an existing Amazon.in seller account moving to another agency or an internal team. It is not a process for transferring account ownership, changing the selling entity or bypassing an account restriction. Those situations require separate verification with Amazon.

The sequence below is our recommended control framework, not an Amazon-mandated timetable or a guarantee against disruption.

1. Agree the cutover and the decision owner

Write down when the incoming team becomes responsible for each workstream. Avoid a vague instruction such as “take over from Monday” when one provider still controls advertising and another person handles dispatch.

Create a handover register with:

• workstream and exact seller account or advertising account;
• outgoing contact, incoming operator and seller-side approver;
• effective cutover date and time;
• pending actions and the next deadline;
• evidence location and acceptance status;
• fallback contact if the incoming operator cannot act.

Separate execution from approval. Catalogue edits, budget increases, promotions, refunds and account-setting changes may need different approval rules. Agree those rules before access is granted.

Keep routine order handling covered during the transition. A planned cutover is not a reason to defer an active policy notice or a deadline shown in the account.

2. Check access without surrendering seller control

Amazon India's Seller Central overview says a company's account administrator can set up a user account for another person. Use the access-management options actually available in the account rather than circulating a shared primary password.

As a seller-side security control, retain control of the primary account, recovery channels and two-step verification. Do not put passwords, one-time codes or recovery codes into the handover register.

Inventory the access surfaces separately:

• Seller Central users and their assigned permissions;
• advertising users, account associations and billing permissions;
• brand-related access, where used;
• approved applications and reporting integrations;
• shared folders, dashboards and operational communication channels.

Amazon Ads' custom access-controls announcement, dated 22 April 2021, describes role-based advertising permissions and lists India among the supported markets. Check the current console before assigning a role; this older announcement establishes the capability, not a guarantee that today's labels and screens are unchanged.

Give the incoming team only the access needed for the agreed work. Test an authorised task in each required system. Do not assume that access to one console or folder proves access to every connected workflow.

3. Preserve catalogue and inventory records

Save a dated baseline before the first incoming-team edit. The purpose is to explain later differences, not to preserve incorrect content indefinitely.

For each active or pending product, collect:

• seller SKU, ASIN, variation relationships and fulfilment route;
• current title, attributes, bullets and approved image files;
• editable creative source files and documented usage rights;
• current offer, promotion and inventory settings;
• inactive or suppressed offers and their recorded reason;
• pending uploads, unresolved catalogue cases and recent changes.

Use Amazon's own inventory and catalogue records alongside the provider's working files. Amazon's Seller Central dashboard guidance distinguishes catalogue, inventory, orders, advertising, reports and performance functions; a single sales screenshot does not cover the handover.

Verify the live offer against the file before making a batch edit. Preserve variation-specific facts such as size, pack contents and material. For title changes, use the separate Amazon India title migration guide rather than treating a provider change as a reason to rewrite every listing.

4. Record advertising settings before restructuring

Save the available campaign reports and settings using a consistent date range, marketplace and attribution definition. Record the export time and any known reporting delay.

The working package should identify:

• campaigns and their current status;
• budgets, bids, bidding strategies and placement adjustments;
• targets, search-term exclusions and advertised products;
• scheduled promotions or planned campaign changes;
• current spend limits and seller-approved economic guardrails;
• explanations for experiments still in progress.

Do not delete and rebuild campaigns merely to make the new team's structure look tidy. First determine which settings are understood, which need repair and which are genuinely obsolete.

Separate emergency containment from planned optimisation. If an authorised operator needs to contain spending outside an agreed limit, record the reason and the action immediately. For ordinary changes, preserve the baseline and change a defined group before expanding.

A handover does not reset product economics. Use the break-even ACOS worksheet to document the existing guardrail; do not inherit an unexplained universal ACOS target.

5. Transfer open issues, not just closed reports

A closed monthly presentation may omit tomorrow's deadline. Build a live issue ledger for account notices, customer-service exceptions, inventory discrepancies, catalogue cases and pending financial investigations.

Every entry should have an account reference, issue date, affected product or order, evidence, latest response, next action, owner and deadline. Take the deadline from the current notice or applicable account policy rather than a generic checklist.

Amazon's Account Health Rating announcement for India describes visibility into policy-violation severity and prioritising important issues. During handover, inspect the actual account-health notices as well as the headline status. Do not treat a reassuring summary as proof that no action is pending.

Keep suspected financial differences separate from confirmed credits. Transfer the supporting exports and current status without relabelling an unresolved claim as recovered money. The Amazon settlement reconciliation guide covers that review in detail.

6. Test the incoming workflow before retiring access

Use a seller-approved acceptance check. The incoming operator should demonstrate that the agreed work can be performed, not simply confirm that an invitation arrived.

Check that the team can:

1. locate the correct account and required reports;
2. see active order and account-health work relevant to its role;
3. locate the latest approved catalogue and advertising baselines;
4. identify the owner and next action for every urgent open issue;
5. obtain seller approval through the agreed channel;
6. record an authorised action and attach its evidence.

Do not create an unnecessary refund, campaign edit or catalogue change just to test permissions. A read-only check may establish visibility; confirm required editing rights through the permission settings and a genuinely needed, authorised task.

Once continuity is verified, retire outgoing access that is no longer authorised. Review connected applications separately before revoking them: identify whether they support a reporting or fulfilment workflow that still needs to run. Record what was removed, what was retained and who approved the decision.

If unauthorised access is suspected, prioritise the seller's security response and Amazon's current support instructions over a routine staged handover.

7. Use an exception-based first review

The first review should answer whether the operation is controllable and the evidence reproducible. It cannot establish a new provider's long-term sales impact.

Review unresolved issues, missed or approaching deadlines, stock exceptions, catalogue changes, advertising spend against approval and settlement-review status. Keep each metric's date range and definition visible.

Illustrative handover exception

Suppose a catalogue upload remains pending at cutover. Record the upload reference, affected SKUs, submitted file, current processing status and next owner. The incoming operator should check the existing submission before creating another one.

This is an illustrative workflow, not an actual client case or a platform processing-time promise.

If sales or ACOS changes during the transition, also inspect stock, promotions, product mix, reporting delays and seasonality. A before-and-after movement alone does not show that switching agencies caused the result.

Final seller sign-off

Sign off only when the seller controls account recovery, the incoming team's access is verified, baseline files are available and urgent work has a named owner. Document outstanding exceptions rather than marking an incomplete handover as complete.

A useful handover leaves the business with a repeatable operating record: who can act, what they can change, what remains unresolved and where the evidence lives. Agree the ongoing account-management scope separately from the transition checklist.