How to give contractors and agencies access to business accounts without losing control
Giving contractors and agencies access to business accounts is a routine part of running a company, whether it’s a freelancer updating the website or an agency managing advertising. The work usually needs a login to something valuable, such as email, the ad platform or the accounting package, so the way access is set up matters from the first day.
The aim is to let outside people do their jobs while ownership of every account stays with the business. That mostly comes down to a few habits that are easy to set up once and repeat for every new supplier, however long the work lasts.
Work Out What Each Person Needs
Write down every account the job will touch, name the person at your end who owns each one, and note what the contractor needs to do inside it. A designer may only need the website editor, while an accountant needs the bookkeeping software but not the bank portal. That list also gives you something to check against later, because reviewing the full list twice a year keeps it accurate as projects come and go.
A Worked Example With Outside Marketing Help
When disturbdigital.com is brought in to run Google Ads, the business can follow three steps that apply to any outside provider. Each one is quick to arrange at the start of the engagement and keeps the account organised for everyone who uses it while the campaigns run.
Limited access: Invite the team to your ad account with a standard user role instead of sharing the owner login, so billing details, payment methods and the list of users stay in your hands while the campaign work carries on as normal from the first week.
Separate user accounts: Each person gets a named login tied to their own work email, which means every change can be traced to a person and access can be added or removed one user at a time without disturbing anyone else.
A clean handover: Agree before work starts who removes the users, when that happens and where reports and campaign history are kept, then confirm removal in writing on the final day. That way the business keeps its own data and the agency knows exactly when its involvement ends.
Add a Second Check and Keep Passwords Out of Email
Two-step verification protects any account an outsider can reach, provided each person receives the code on their own device rather than yours, or you end up approving every sign-in. Where an app can’t create separate users, a password manager can share the login without revealing it, which beats sending credentials by email or chat. Keep billing and owner-level access with one named person in the business.
Close Access When the Work Ends
On the final day of a contract, remove each user, disconnect linked apps and change any shared passwords, because logins tend to outlast the work they were created for. A written offboarding plan built around timely revocation of access keeps that list in one place, and a short checklist makes each new engagement quicker to set up and just as easy to close.
