What is Seed to Sale Tracking?

What is seed to sale tracking? The simple answer is it’s the highly intensive monitoring that goes on in the cannabis industry to satisfy regulatory guidelines or legislations and ensure compliance. The term is also used to refer to the highly sophisticated systems put in place to ensure this happens in an efficient and verifiable manner. These systems come in the form of different software that needs to be deployed within every cannabis business premise.

Generally speaking, the best seed to sale tracking software is a form of an inventory system that regulators can use to track important aspects of the cannabis industry such as cultivation, processing, transportation, and sales.

The idea behind seed to sale tracking is to ensure that there are strict inventory control measures in place from the moment a seed is put in the ground to the time it hits the shelves as a final product and gets sold to the customer. Regulators want to keep a close tab on every single ounce of cannabis produced and sold in each of the states that have legalized its use.

This kind of tracking, although now streamlined by sophisticated seed to sale software, is often ensured by many redundancies such as written records, barcoded containers, and state-approved labels.

The beauty of using software is that it’s the kind of system that can be monitored in real-time by both the business owner as well as the regulatory bodies interested in ensuring compliance.

Why is Seed to Sale Tracking Required?

State and local governments play an important role in enforcing regulations in the cannabis industry. They collect taxes and prevent illegal cannabis businesses from operating. Seed-to-sale software can track and trace all legal cannabis throughout its lifecycle, which makes it easier for state and local governments to enforce laws.

Should you Use a Seed-to-sale Tracking System for Your Medical Marijuana Business?

The simple answer to this question is YES. You should definitely use a seed to sale tracking system. Marijuana Enforcement Tracking Reporting Compliance or METRC, in short, is the number one reason why each and every licensed marijuana seller in almost every state needs to have a robust seed to sale tracking system. METRC is the compliance body that links the government with business owners in this industry. Through that link, this body makes compliance easier and more automated for the entire cannabis industry.

The truth of the matter is that since more states started legalizing marijuana use for adults, there has been a tussle between public safety issues and creating a viable business environment for the industry players. Obviously, the 33 states that have already legalized medical marijuana realized the benefits of this plant and its by-products have for their citizens. With that legalization, demand has gone up and, as is to be expected, production and distribution will follow suit.

Thanks to this high demand, though, it’s only natural that some growers and distributors might want to cut corners to make a quick profit by providing substandard products. Not only that but some unscrupulous dealers might want to make more money by selling these products to minors.

Regulatory agencies such as OSHA, HIPAA, and the FCC have all come in to ensure that none of this happens. One way they ensure that is through the use of seed to sale tracking systems that link to METRC.

What Does the Law Say about Seed to Sale Tracking Systems?

Every state has its own set of laws and regulations when it comes to its marijuana industry. There is, however, one thing that they all have in common: state reporting. Regardless of where you are doing business within the states where marijuana use is legalized, you are legally required to provide the governing bodies with a detailed report of your products.

Currently, every single one of these states is in the process of ensuring that they can track the end product back to the seed. This means that more attention is being paid to the quality of weed being sold and that every single ounce is accounted for to ensure public safety and adherence to the rules and regulations that have been put in place.

To understand why your state might be interested in finding out where you get your weed, how you grow it, and where you sell it, you need to understand the spirit of the law as it’s been enacted.

Everything all these regulatory bodies do is for public safety purposes. It’s that simple. Every rule, every law, and every seemingly invasive regulation has been put in place to protect the public. Take for example:

• Marijuana sale limits: States have a sale limit to how many ounces of marijuana you can sell a single customer every day. The reason for this is so that they can regulate abuse and illegal reselling. Imagine selling 500 ounces of legal weed to a licensed buyer who only needs 10 ounces a day. The remaining 490 ounces are unaccounted for once they get a hold of it and they can do whatever they want to do with it, including selling it to kids for profit.
• Inventory labeling: Most, if not all, states require you to have some kind of uniform labeling of your products. Some will need simple information such as the number of ounces, potency, and strain of product while others complicate matters by asking for things like lab test results, dates, and so on. Whatever the case, this kind of labeling is designed to keep the public informed about the specific products as well as help the state track the different types of strains being sold within its borders. It’s also to ensure that dealers are sticking to the required standards of production and product manipulation.

To maintain cannabis compliance today, you have to be willing to accept that laws and regulations come into play at almost every turn. The biggest problem is that these regulations are ever-changing. Because this industry is in its infancy and more bodies are starting to pay close attention, there are bound to many more provisions by which business owners must abide in the future.

This makes compliance somewhat complicated. What you thought you knew today could be just one of twenty new regulations next week. As such, trying to stay current and compliant without some form of automated system can be cumbersome and prone to mistakes. The problem is that, in this arena, these seemingly innocent mistakes from ignorance or negligence can lead to hefty fines or even the loss of your license.

Reasons to Buy the Best Seed to Sale Tracking System

With all this in mind, here are five good reasons why you should invest in a robust seed to sale tracking system for your marijuana business:

1. It Makes Compliance Easy

Marijuana compliance has to be one of the biggest headaches any business owner in this industry undergoes. The simple fact that compliance regulations are different in every state and that it keeps evolving makes it impossible to do manually. At least not to a highly satisfactory degree. For the most part, states require business owners to carry out certain compliance steps which include:

• Sales reporting: You need to tell the state how much weed you sell either on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
• Sales limit: Your state may have a limit as to how many ounces you can sell a single client every day.
• Labeling: Your state may require you to follow a series of labeling
• Track every seed or strain of weed you sell: This could also be a huge problem as some states will require you to account for every plant or ounce of weed you sell from the time it’s a seed to when it lands in your clients’ hand as an end product.
• Compliance paperwork: You must have all the necessary paperwork ready for inspection when needed.

There are many other compliance guidelines that you must follow and trying to do them all manually can be taxing. As already mentioned, mistakes when it comes to compliance can be very costly. The best seed to sale software has built-in compliance guidelines. Because these systems are often connected to MERTC or whichever compliance system your state uses, it’s easy to automate this process and minimize or even eliminate the propensity for error that comes with human interaction.

2. It Keeps Your Inventory Organized

Your licensed marijuana business holds a wide variety of products. This inventory can range from flowers to other forms of end products including things like:

● Tinctures.
● Edibles.
● Different batches from different strains.
● Different types of concentrates.

All these products are not the same and cannot be treated as such. The state will require you to keep a clean and meticulous record of your inventory. How you acquired it, when you sold it, and even to whom you sold it. Doing this manually can be taxing and could lead to a lot of mistakes which could very well end up costing you your license.

An efficient seed to sale tracking system provides you with real-time menu updates when a change occurs in your inventory. It will also show you when stocks are low, when you need to increase a certain type of product, and which one of your options is outperforming the rest as far as sales are concerned. Basically, with the right system, you will always know what is going on in your shop and so will the government, which is exactly what you want as a transparent weed dealer.

3. It Makes Forecasting Analytical

Let’s be honest, every business owner likes to dream about the day their business is going to be unimaginably successful. You think about how much your turnover would be, what kind of volumes you would be selling, and the sheer multitude of return and new customers that you will have when that day comes. While positivity is welcome in any given situation, analytical forecasting using cold, hard numbers is often more practical.

Let’s say you want to sell a million dollars’ worth of weed next year. Ask yourself:

• Do you know which one of your products can help you achieve that goal?
• Do you know what kind of stock you have to hold to achieve it?
• How about the strains you are selling? Are they popular enough to help you get where you want to go?

These are all questions that a robust seed to sale tracking system can help you answer using cold hard facts. The right system keeps track of all your inventory and highlights which yields give you the most profit. You can also determine when and how to grow your weed while staying compliant to ensure that you get the best yield with every season. Using these facts, you can strategize on how to hit your sales target.

4. It Offers You Efficient Customer Management

The best seed to sale software is effectively a highly sophisticated CRM platform. This means that there are functions within the system that allow you to manage customer relations more efficiently. With the right system, not only will you have all the necessary customer information at the touch of a button but you will also be able to highlight their purchase patterns.

This means that you can better serve your customers by anticipating their needs. It goes to inventory management by making sure their favorite product is always stocked so they don’t go to your competitor. It also goes to acquiring their loyalty as you can institute a loyalty program of your making within the system. Additionally, with the customer’s consent, you can put them on a list where you can send them periodic updates on new products that they might find interesting. Above all this, though, it allows you to sell customers what the state allows you to sell them, or the sale limit. Some customers might have issues with this but as long as you can show them it’s not you that is refusing to sell them additional weed, they will be more understanding and maybe even a bit more appreciative of your honesty.

5. It’s Acts as a POS

You need a point-of-sale system if your store is to remain profitable and compliant. The best seed to sale tracking systems often have POS integration which makes it an all-around software for running your business without additional overheads.

It’s all about compliance, efficiency, and keeping your customers happy. A robust seed to sale system can help you do all that while making it easier to find ways to make an even better profit margin by accurately forecasting your yields and sales.