Metrc as a Gateway to Cannabis Business Software
Introducing Metrc
As its name indicates, Metrc–short for Marijuana, Enforcement, Tracking, Reporting and Compliance–is a state-employed track and trace platform designed to service states for state-mandated seed to sale required reporting. But that doesn’t mean Metrc enables compliance, let alone the broader set business goals you’ve set beyond basic compliance. In fact, arguably track and trace, as yet another box to check, exemplifies the logic behind the general push in the cannabis space to digitize operations. Here, we discuss why Metrc is mandatory but necessarily helpful towards compliance, and how using Metrc justifies adopting general cannabis software.
How Metrc’s Tracking System Enforces Compliance without Ensuring it
At the outset, it’s important to recognize that, even as a mandatory track and trace platform in many states, Metrc, Metrc’s inventory tracking and even Metrc certification do not ensure compliance–they merely ensures the enforcement of it. While this may sound like a distinction without a difference, keep in mind: Metrc is employed by the state strictly for enforcement purposes, which may not always compliment your business goals (more about this here.) So even if as you’re recording data there’s a gap Metrc’s audit flags as non-compliant, Metrc reporting isn’t built to alert you of that. As a neutral third party, in fact, Metrc will allow you to enter data and quantities that could put your license at risk without notification. The impetus is on you, therefore, to double and triple check these numbers, often painstakingly. As we’ve seen in New York and elsewhere, many states are now requiring operators to sync with compliance platforms via third party software. And although investment in cannabis software comes at a cost, think of it as any savvy business person does, as a useful and necessary expense there to be maximized for the gain of your operation, over the long-term. Though full integration between cannabis software and Metrc is an expectation, that doesn’t mean syncing features are identical across software platforms. What you want is the platform that makes compliance work for you.
How you can Leverage Metrc Support and Compliance Data for your Business Goals
In the best possible world, even a potentially burdensome compliance requirement works for you. After all, if you’re going to be sinking hours into recording data and numbers, you might as well get something in return for your time. With Metrc alone, though, that’s not guaranteed. Metrc records your data without making those numbers easily accessible to you, so that three months down the road when you go to consult last quarter’s numbers, you’re left sifting through old data. But by investing in cannabis general software you can ensure that compliance offers you a return on your time investment. Unlike Metrc, general software companies are built with the customer’s needs in mind. Whereas Metrc is not equipped to save data beyond state compliance numbers, including dollars, customers, taxes, vendor information, sales inventory, and more, in many ways the entire function of general software is to put you in touch with these numbers, encouraging a data-driven approach to running your business.
Why Metrc Integration Is Part of a Larger Push to Adopt Cannabis Business Software
The push to move software online had come with a second push, for cannabis companies to follow suit. In states like New York, where adopting Biotrack and the universal track and trace platform came with a secondary requirement, to enlist in a cannabis general software solution, that requirement is explicit. But the data entry demands of Metrc implicitly pushes operators online, anyway. That said, Metrc is not built to capture and centralize your business data, as the complexity of the cannabis industry increasingly requires you to do, nor is Metrc set up to provide intel into your daily operations. For these business and growth-oriented features, you’ll need to look into a general software.
Streamline Your Compliance (and More) with Flourish
Flourish is a robust cannabis software solution designed for seamless integration with track and trace platforms, including Metrc. Much of what lies beyond Metrc’s purview, much of what we’ve named here, Flourish offers. Integrating seamlessly with Metrc’s API, as a modern software solution Flourish offers an easy, user-friendly interface, minimizing the software learning curve.
Flourish can not only ease compliance data reporting, but it makes this process profitable to you, saving data and numbers in a centralized system so that they’re ready to be accessed as needed. Finally, Flourish caters to the compliance needs of small business or multi-state operators, and is built to be scalable for growth-minded companies. To learn more about Flourish’s and its seamless integration with Metrc, click here.