Seed To Sale Software: What To Consider
There are hundreds of different seed to sale software systems out on the market today. With the ever changing laws and regulations in the cannabis industry, it’s very beneficial to your business to utilize the correct software to help ensure you stay compliant 100% of the time. Staying current and up to date on the laws and regulations is very crucial and can be very time consuming as a business owner. Having a system that provides automated reporting to ensure your reports are submitted on time with 100% accuracy would save a ton of your time.
Another set of emergency rules were just enacted on November 1st for the medical cannabis industry. The laws in the industry seem ever-changing and are very hard to keep up with and sometimes understand, even. A lot of dispensary stores have a point of sale (POS) system but what about a compliance software? How do you make sure you haven’t missed any new rules, regulations, laws, or deadlines for reports to be submitted. The medical cannabis industry is booming but OMMA is cracking down hard on the industry to ensure complete compliance. The parts of the medical cannabis industry consist of: Growers / Cultivators, Processors, Distributors, Transporters, and Dispensaries.
Some ambitious entrepreneurs run their own entire operations with growing, processing, and stores. With large businesses like this there is a lot more to keep up with. If you have your own grow facility, processing lab, and dispensary store there are a lot of laws and regulations to keep up with and comply with. To these ambitious entrepreneurs that have all three of these I ask this, “If there was a software system suite that had the capabilities of keeping track of all your operations and stayed 100% compliant for you, would you utilize it? Would this benefit you and enable you to grow your business more efficiently?”
"Emergency rules will go into effect on Monday, November 1st. We've compiled a few of the new changes and sorted them by license type. This is not an exhaustive list of every change, but we wanted to highlight a few we think licensees would be interested in knowing. To read through all of our emergency rules, visit oklahoma.gov/omma/administration/rules-regulations.html."
-Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority OMMA
There are a lot of things to consider when contemplating integrating a new software system into your business. The days of traditional business are changing. Keeping track of sales records, and all other business related records with pen and paper aren’t practical anymore. This is one of many outdated, old methods of business management. Whatever method you use to run your business, odds are your business is online now. Google Business is a great tool for business owners to bring their brand alive online. You even get your own website for free. But all of Google’s tools work much better if you have your own website. Getting a website is a crucial asset to your business, this creates trust with Google and other online platforms and is nice for your viewers to be able to visit. Internet has become more popular than TV now. All of your potential customers are spending a lot of their time online so having an online presence is the key to gaining more customers.
Using a software suite that includes a website is one great way to accomplish obtaining your own site. A lot of software now enables drag and drop websites. Meaning you create your own website by simply dragging and dropping the pre-built sections onto the page. Build a custom site tailored to your brand and showcase your greatest features as a business.
5 Key Benefits To Seed To Sale Software
1Compliance: Ensuring 100% Accuracy & Compliance Round the Clock
2Consolidation: Multiple Operations Organized into One Central Location
3Ease: Run Your Operation(s) With Efficiently with Ease
4Website: Build Your Own Custom Website Easily
5Insight: Keep Track of Every Aspect of Your Operation – From Seed to Sale
Seed to Sale Software: Compliance & Integrations
A very important feature of whatever software you use for your business, is integrations. Having a software that is already integrated with Metrc ensures you will always stay compliant with Metrc standards. That checks one thing off your workload because it is always done for you. Intuit is another great integration to have. This is a powerful integration as it handles all your payroll, taxes, anything pertaining to your cash flow. Mostly every business uses Intuit Quickbooks for their payroll.
POS System
For Dispensary owners, having a point of sale system is very necessary. Keeping track of sales records and patients can be a lot of information to collect and store. The fastest way to do this is to utilize a POS system that stores this information for you. It is also very important to keep your patient records stored and up to date, as their licenses have expiration dates. On the sales end there are a lot of important things to consider. You want to offer the best to your customers and loyalty programs are a great way to achieve this. Who doesn’t love to be rewarded or even better, receiving money? A loyalty program is definitely great to have to offer and it’s important to decide how you want your point system to work. You can always use punch cards, this method has been used for years but honestly, don’t you hate carrying punch cards around in your wallet and trying to find them each time you make a purchase? Think of what is easiest for the customer and creates the best purchasing experience. If you could keep track of your customers’ points online and having a customizable point system set up that would be much more efficient.
Offer Top Notch Deals
Another very vital thing to offer in dispensary stores is deals. Deals, deals, and more deals. Mix & Match Deals and Daily Deals will likely produce your highest numbers of sales. Everyone loves to save money right? The best way to offer this to customers is by planning out deals each day and creating mix & match deals of items that pair well together. With a lot of deals comes a lot of responsibility. You want to be sure to keep track of your deals and keep records of previous deals. If you are running multiple deals at a time it can get difficult to keep track. Keeping all your deals on a calendar is one way to resolve this issue. Organize your types of deals by color so if there are multiple deal types each day you can differentiate them while viewing. Organization is key for efficient sales strategies.
Keeping Record
Organization is key throughout every aspect of your business operation. With that, record keeping is probably one of the most important areas. If you are making a ton of sales, it can get difficult to keep track very quickly. Especially when you are also keeping track of deals and loyalty points. Another thing to consider is keeping track of is your sales trends and demographics, all the important sales insights. Having a constant insight on your sales allows you to market your products properly. Noting which sales have the highest revenue is beneficial for future deal strategies. When considering software systems, most definitely look into systems that have top of the line reporting. Automated sales report is a feature that would be very beneficial for a business. Especially when you have to submit reports to OMMA monthly. A software that regularly submits your reports to OMMA would save you time and ensure you’re always on time.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is, if you want to run a large and successful business in the medical cannabis industry you’re going to need some help. The greatest asset to your business is a seed to sale software that empowers you to keep an eye on every aspect of your business. Keep track of what works, and doesn’t work for your operation. Consolidate your platforms down to one. When looking into what software to use, make sure every feature that can benefit your business operation is included. Write a list of features that you truly need and that would make your business more efficient. Shop around for those features and use that to guide your decision into the right software for you and your brand. Consider all the points I made above and think about your business and what makes you stand out. What are your best features? What draws your customers in? How could you achieve these features more efficiently?
