How to offboard a dealership software vendor

What to check before you decide

Second, secure the accounts and assets. List every account the vendor holds for you, such as domains, phone numbers, ad accounts, analytics, social pages, certificates and listing connections.

Transfer ownership or administrator rights before notice, because relationships can sour. Collect hardware to be returned.

Third, protect continuity. Plan what the replacement will do on day one, and run the two in parallel where possible.

Update the connections: feeds, forms, call numbers and integrations that point at the old tool. Tell customers and staff what is changing.

Fourth, watch the contract. Confirm the notice date, any fees, and what you must do to end billing.

Send notice in the way the contract requires, and keep proof. Confirm in writing when access ends and when data is deleted.

Fifth, preserve evidence. Keep records that you may need later for compliance, such as consent records, deal documents and logs. Ask the vendor for a certificate of deletion when the retention period is over.

Remove access for the vendor and for your own staff on a set date. Review the process afterward and update your checklist.

Schedule a final review with the replacement vendor after the first month of parallel running, comparing the exported data, the new system's records and the connections one by one, because gaps found while the old account is still open can be fixed from the source, and gaps found after deletion usually cannot.

Set a reminder for ninety days after the end date to confirm that billing stopped, access is gone and the vendor has deleted or returned your data as agreed. Forgotten subscriptions and live accounts are common leftovers.

Keep a list of every person who had a login, and confirm each was removed, so that no former employee or vendor contact keeps access to customer records.