Tracking cannabis products from their origins and throughout the complex cultivation process until it’s in the hands of the consumer is a required task for cultivators and processors—and it’s a highly regulated one. Local, state and federal requirements vary and change regularly, which means you and other cultivators and processors require an advanced business management tool that can help you effectively track your products and remain compliant.
A popular choice by many cannabis businesses is seed-to-sale software. It’s an industry-specific solution that helps digitally track, control and record the entire cannabis cultivation process. And while the software does exactly what it’s designed to do, it’s not designed to manage and streamline your finance, operational, human resources, lifecycle tracking, inventory, quality and traceability processes.
Fortunately, there is a solution that provides seed-to-sale and comprehensive business management functionality: an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution. Today, we’ll explore the similarities and differences between seed-to-sale software and cannabis ERP and why growing cannabis businesses are choosing the latter.
Seed-to-Sale vs. ERP
Seed-to-sale software and ERP solutions share a number of similarities, such as offering product tracking via barcodes and scanners that are able to collect data and then stream that data into a centralized database. Users can analyze the information and utilize built-in reports for sharing actionable insights.
The two options enable cannabis businesses like yours to easily track your product from its inception to its sale, helping you adhere to changing rules and laws while automating processes and saving hours of effort and cutting costs. Some seed-to-sale software options can include point of sale (POS) functionality as can many ERP solutions, and both options help cannabis businesses maintain regulatory compliance.
But even though these are substantial benefits, seed-to-sale software is limited in its scope and capabilities—unlike a modern cannabis ERP solution. For example, a cannabis ERP solution offers a full suite of integrated applications, including finance, accounting, sales, distribution, manufacturing, inventory, quality management, and more. Together, these applications deliver vital features in a single, innovative platform that utilizes advanced technologies, such as artificial learning (AI) and machine learning (ML), to constantly improve its functionality.
This functionality includes enabling you to expand into the retail space and providing the compliance tools that cover your growing responsibilities. Cannabis ERP’s embedded accounting software eliminates the need for integrating with external accounting solutions that aren’t sophisticated enough to manage every aspect of your business. And production scheduling and quality control functionality ensures that your business can efficiently produce a high quality, consistent product.
Growing Businesses Are Turning to ERP
After comparing seed-to-sale software and cannabis ERP solutions, many businesses recognize that an ERP solution is an all-in-one system that meets their expanding needs. But not all cannabis software is created equal. The cannabis market is filled with systems that masquerade as full-scale ERP but are light in functionality and lacking in depth. Kyle Smith, CFO of FIGR™, a cannabis enterprise located in Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island, discovered this truth while searching for a new ERP system.
“We looked at several ERPs and even considered staying on SAP,” he says. “Then NexTec showed us CannaBusiness ERP, built in Sage X3, and won our trust and business.”
Unlike the seed-to-sale software options presented to him, CannaBusiness ERP’s robust manufacturing, distribution, inventory control and core accounting capabilities gave Smith and his team a strong foundation upon which to build their cannabis management needs. They quickly learned that CannaBusiness ERP can:
- Handle the financial complexity of single and multi-state operators. Built in Sage X3, CannaBusiness ERP offers multi-company and multi-facility functionality, which other cannabis ERP systems cannot do. Multi-state operators can manage their companies located in different states using the same system with full operational visibility into each company.
- Manage every aspect of their business. Cannabis businesses have complete control over and visibility into their finance, seed-to-sale, compliance, quality and traceability activities from a single, complete system. As a true ERP system, CannaBusiness ERP collects data associated with each process or activity as well as simplifies currency, legislation and ledger requirements. It also supports compliance needs with GMP standards, manages plant production with optimal traceability and optimizes warehouse and logistical processes. And CannaBusiness ERP streamlines and automates product recalls quickly and efficiently.
- Measure the metrics that really matter. Organizations use metrics to measure how well their business is performing, and CannaBusiness ERP’s robust business intelligence (BI) functionality gives business leaders the financial and operational metrics they need to make strategic business decisions. With customized dashboards, they receive real-time data without the need for endless reports or help from the IT department, which means less time looking for the data and more time analyzing it for actionable insights.
For the FIGR team, CannaBusiness ERP had the top cannabis features that are necessary for succeeding in today’s digital economy. They’re now enjoying the easy-to-use interface along with a number of industry-centric benefits, including:
- Forward-and-backward traceability, which enables FIGR to comply with regulations and be transparent with customers.
- Configurable quality checklists for testing, monitoring, controlling and reporting on the quality and consistency of their products.
- Detailed product cost data they can analyze for product profitability.
- Reporting and data analysis tools that help them save time in producing monthly reports.
“We’ve got the right application in place with CannaBusiness ERP and the right technology partner to keep us going and growing,” Smith says.
If you’re debating between seed-to-sale software or a full-featured cannabis ERP solution, then our NexTec experts—who configure our cannabis software and have deep industry knowledge—can answer any of your questions.Contact us today. We’d love to chat.