Why You Need Dispensary Software at Your California Operation

With California’s cannabis market set to explode, entrepreneurs across the state are preparing for their piece of the action. Business owners of all stripes are looking to leverage their experience and expertise in other trades in the burgeoning cannabis industry.

While previous experience can be successfully parlayed into a cannabis retail venture, would-be dispensary owners need to consider the dramatic differences between traditional retail and cannabis.

Compliance Is the Name of the Game

As a cannabis retail owner, your number-one priority is not sales quotas, margins, or budgets. Don’t get us wrong—these things are certainly important. But they’re all irrelevant if your dispensary is found out of compliance with state regulations.

Consider this: in traditional retail, inventory discrepancy is a problem that can lead to loss on your bottom line. But at the end of the day, your business will still be viable, even if you experience some amount of shrinkage.

On the other hand, inventory variance in the cannabis space can be the kiss of death for dispensaries. Because the state tracks every last gram of cannabis that is cultivated, processed, and sold to consumers, it’s critical that your inventory counts reconcile not just internally, but with the state’s reports as well.

Failure to do so could render severe consequences—including the loss of your license to operate.

California Retail Cannabis Compliance Solutions

If you are coming into cannabis from a traditional retail environment, you already know that a reliable, quality point-of-sale system is indispensable. But the POS that you used in previous industries may not be the best fit for your cannabis retail venture.

In order to streamline your dispensary operations and ensure you remain compliant with California’s cannabis laws—including seed to sale tracking requirements—you need to consider investing in dispensary  software.

What’s the Big Difference?

In cannabis retail, your POS needs to do more than just process transactions. Your budtenders need a single system with which they can:

• Check customers into the store and verify their information
• Quickly access product details and inventory while on the sales floor
• Confidently sell a variety of cannabis products without exceeding transaction limits
• Reconcile inventory and generate accurate sales reports

Perhaps most importantly, a quality cannabis point of sale will be able to integrate with Metrc—California’s seed to sale tracking provider—to automatically sync inventory counts and sales data to the state’s system.

This feature alone can save your dispensary from catastrophic errors. Without Metrc integration, you or one of your employees will have to manually update all mandated information in the system at the close of every business day—a process that is time-consuming, cumbersome, and vulnerable to error.

How Do I Choose?

If you’ve already begun considering a cannabis dispensary POS system, you’ve probably noticed that there are a lot on the market. So how should you go about picking one that’s right for you?

We’ve put together a list of the seven most important things to look for when choosing a point-of-sale system for your dispensary. Download it for free today and learn more about how cannabis-specific POS can help you maximize efficiency and remain compliant with state regulations.