5 Key Factors to Consider When Choosing Seed-to-Sale Software

If you’re a cannabis business serious about growth (and not just the plant kind!), odds are you’re using or considering cannabis seed-to-sale software. Trying to keep on top of inventory, processing, and sales without any kind of management system can be a nightmare. Handwritten logs, frustrating missing information, spreadsheets that don’t fluidly connect, and inconclusive counts not only impede your business but burden your staff. Working with a system that tracks everything for you is an obvious solution for simplifying your life. 

But where do you start looking? That’s a great question. Not all seed-to-sale solutions are created equal. In order to choose the right system for your business, we’ve outlined the 5 key factors to consider when choosing cannabis seed-to-sale software. 

1. Does it handle compliance for you?

For most cannabis seed-to-sale software, compliance is an afterthought. It's added in clunky ways after the developers realized it was important. Due to this, it's not well-designed and requires lots of manual work on your part.

Questions to ask:

• Does it generate monthly reports for both Health Canada and the CRA?
• Does it generate everything you need for an audit or inspection from either agency?

• Does it make sure that you never miss any important compliance information while growing or processing cannabis?
• Does it make Good Production Practices (GPP) documentation easy and integrate it into your batch or lot records?
  

2. How simple is it to learn and operate?

Most cannabis seed-to-sale systems are, ironically, created by development teams that do not have experience with cannabis. This means that they’ve built highly technical systems that tend to only make sense to people that are comfortable with software. Running a cannabis operation is a huge amount of work. You want a system that is A) easy and quick to learn, B) will make sense to you and your team on a daily basis, and C) will save you time every day so that you can run your business. Many seed-to-sale systems will add time to your day. Make sure to demo any solution you are considering thoroughly with multiple people on your team to make sure that it makes sense to everybody.

Questions to ask:

• Is the system configurable to your needs?
• Does it have workflows that match what your team will be doing?
• Will your team need to regularly “translate” between what you are doing and how the system tracks data?

3. What is the focus of the seed-to-sale?

Every seed-to-sale system has a different focus. For example, some began in the medical regulations and have a focus on medical patient management. Others are primarily inventory management systems, and yet others focus on environmental monitoring. Oftentimes, these systems behave quite poorly in the domains that they aren’t focused on. With CertiCraft, our focus is compliance. In fact, we are the only seed-to-sale solution where compliance is the primary focus. We felt that this was critical, given that compliance is what allows all licensed producers to retain their licenses (and our 150 and counting customers would all agree).

Questions to ask: 

• Do you understand the scope of everything that matters to you in a solution?
• If so, have you ascertained that the system you are considering addresses your needs in a demo? Always make sure to see whatever it is that matters to you!
• What are the shortcomings of whatever system you are considering, and will that affect your operations?

4. Breadth vs Depth

Most cannabis seed-to-sale software (especially those that are ERPs) is focused on breadth. They want to do everything that could touch a cannabis operation (e.g. inventory management, accounting, procurement, customer relations, employee management, etc.). But, this comes at a cost. They don’t do any one thing well, and due to the complexity of the systems, are confusing to use. From what we have seen, the average ERP slows down each user at a facility by over 20% a day. This is from all the time wasted trying to figure out how the heck to track their work.

CertiCraft is unique in that it focuses on depth. Specifically: depth of compliance. How can we make your life from a compliance perspective as easy and automated as possible? We remove all the headache in your relationships with the CRA and Health Canada, and in the process, save our customers hundreds of hours of busywork. Here is a case study with Stewart Farms where we saved 2 of their employees 152 hours of busywork in the first month that they switched to CertiCraft. 

Questions to ask: 

• What is essential to your business operations?
• Are there features being offered that are redundant or irrelevant to your needs?
• Are you paying for services you won’t actually use?
• What is the area you need the most functionality in, and does the service you are considering have depth in that domain?

5. Does the seed-to-sale sell your data?

Did you know that many software companies augment their revenue by selling customers’ data? In the world of cannabis, this could mean that your nutrient/feeding schedule, your formulations, your extraction process, or whatever your secret sauce might be could be sold without your explicit permission. At CertiCraft, our customer’s data is their own private information, and we will never sell that. Unfortunately, most of our competitors throughout this space do not have that same care for your privacy.

Questions to ask:

• What is the privacy policy of the solution in question?
• What do they do with your data?
• Is your data kept confidential? 

Choosing the right seed-to-sale software for your cannabis business is crucial for efficient operations and a simplified workload. Here at CertiCraft, we want you to feel informed and empowered to make that decision. By asking yourself the questions outlined above, you’ll be able to make a confident decision on a solution that best fits the needs of your business. Remember to keep compliance at the core of your choice, and to keep trying demos until you find something that is both simple to use and compatible with your niche. Be aware of the “bells and whistles” of ERPs which lack specialized depth in the fields that actually matter to you. Most importantly, demand transparency about how your data is being used. Privacy policies matter! By carefully assessing these factors, you’ll save yourself a lot of time, money, and effort by choosing a solution that will serve you for the long term. 

Want to save yourself even more time? Book a demo of CertiCraft by clicking here. We fit all the criteria listed above and offer other features we can’t wait to tell you about. Drop us a line so we can discuss your needs and how we can help.