Seed to sale software documents and reports all the workflows that are required throughout cultivation, manufacturing, distribution and retail, all while capturing crucial data for business intelligence analytics. Seed to sale software creates supply chain transparency by tracking the lifecycle of every gram of cannabis produced and/or processed in a facility, to the point where it is sold, either to a vendor or directly to a medical patient.
While the primary purpose of seed to sale software is to create reports to maintain compliance with regulations, it also captures valuable data that cannabis operators can use to make informed business decisions.
By tracking each cannabis plant from the time it is planted through to its final sale to a consumer in a dispensary, seed to sale software fulfills multiple functions for cannabis business owners. The right seed to sale system collects and reports the data into mandated government regulatory track and trace systems, while simultaneously giving operators the data and tools to gain efficiencies while optimizing their business.
Seed to Sale solutions include added functionality that enhances and supplements the basic reporting workflows for track and trace systems. The most robust seed to sale solutions have integrations with world-class accounting systems, such as Quickbooks, Sage Intacct and SAP. Other seed to sale software functionality should include:
Real-time visibility to inventory accountability for all product as it moves throughout a facility, and in between facilities, and assistance with audit and reconciliation processes.
Tools to track and manage labor costs, helps schedule staff based on need, ensure efficient staff workflows, and provide data to enhance labor modeling.
Data visualizations to provide full visibility into operational workflows, allowing management to drive efficiencies and optimize SOPs for growth and profitability.
Automated workflows to enforce sales limits and warning systems to prevent overselling. Tracks and reports compliance waste transfers, waste
Enhances consumer relationships through targeted communication, and allows retail operators insight into preferences and demographics of core consumers. Allows staff to target recommendations and upsell opportunities to returning customers, and drive repeat business.
Open API integrations enhances the standard seed to sale functionality, enabling a variety of purchase and delivery workflows, including online ordering, delivery route planning and more payment options.
Integrations with accounting software solutions that enable business owners to track finances at a more granular level, providing HIPAA compliant audit trails, COG tracking for 208E optimization.
Watch the webinar with industry veteran, Seth Dewberry, as he gives a detailed discussion on seed-to-sale vs. track-and-trace.
Cannabis licence holders and business owners are the primary users of cannabis seed-to-sale software. The software facilitates the operational efficiencies of all cannabis workflows throughout the industry supply chain. Seed to sale software has applications with both micro and macro oversights within the cannabis supply chain, and is therefore used by both business owners and employees alike.
Cannabis business owners: On the macro scale, seed to sale software provides owners and leadership teams with the analytics and tools needed to gain a holistic view of an operation allowing them to make data-driven decisions that impact the health and profitability of their business.
Employees of Cannabis Operations: For facility staff, the seed to sale solution is a tool used for the day-to-day management of an operation, enabling cultivators, processors, distributors and dispensary managers to work cohesively and compliantly.
CFOs and Accounting teams: Seed to sale software with advanced ERP integrations are particularly useful for cannabis businesses with sophisticated accounting workflows. Through integrations with world-class accounting software like SAP, Sage, and Oracle, seed to sale solutions can be enhanced to provide robust accounting, reporting and taxation capabilities that are of particular appeal to the c-suite leadership team.
Using a seed to sale solution is crucial in running a scalable and profitable cannabis business. Integrated seed to sale software accomplishes much of the reporting functionality required by government track and trace systems, enabling cannabis businesses to remain compliant while running their operations to the optimal level for growth and profitability. However, seed-to-sale software goes beyond simply capturing compliance data; it is designed to provide full 360 visibility into each point in the supply chain, giving operators the insights and tools to run their business. Using this data, cannabis business owners are able to make fully informed decisions to improve efficiencies and maximize the outcomes of their business. By choosing a seed to sale software that also integrates with business tools, such as robust accounting solutions, cannabis business owners can operate their business from a single interface, all while maintaining compliance.
Instead of monitoring only the basic work flows required to remain compliant, seed to sale software can be customized to go as granular—or as big picture—as the organization needs. This level of insight includes functionality like:
While some operators believe they can run their business solely through the mandatory track and trace systems, they are missing the business acumen provided by the addition of an seed to sale solution. The true value of seed to sale software is its integrated key business tools and data insights that layer in above the compliance workflows. The adoption of increasingly sophisticated seed to sale software technology has become a must-have for the industry for optimizing operations, financial management, profitability, and compliance.
Seed to Sale tracking works by using a software platform to track the lifecycle of every gram of cannabis grown, produced and/or processed in a facility, to when it is sold, either to a vendor or directly to an end user. The transparency provided by this detailed tracking ensures regulators that there is an uncompromised chain of custody from seed to sale. Seed-to-sale software does this by capturing data points throughout the cannabis supply chain, from the inception of an individual plant or crop, through the plant’s harvest, processing, distribution, and sale. Seed-to-sale tracking provides total data visibility from cultivation to processing to manufacturing to the final sale to the patient. By the time the product is sold, it can be traced back to the plant and facility of origin, creating an unbroken chain of custody.
Seed to sale software integrates with scanners, scales and printers to generate and scan unique id labels assigned to each plant at the time it is first planted. The unique identifiers follow the plant as it moves through each stage of its journey from seed to sale, giving operators and regulators full visibility into:
Article: The Success of the Legal Cannabis Ecosystem Relies on This
The visibility generated by this transparency, data rich seed to sale cannabis supply chain helps ensure the safety of the end user by ensuring the cannabis product has been safely managed at every point along the seed to sale journey.
A seed to sale system is an enterprise software solution that enables cannabis business owners — from single location to full vertical, multi-state operators —to manage, scale, and optimize more competitive operations, receive a return on their investment, and stay compliant across the entire legal cannabis supply chain, from seed to sale. The term seed to sale, first coined by MJ Freeway in 2010, refers specifically to the technology solution that tracks every gram of cannabis grown and sold throughout the legal market. The seed to sale software system documents and reports all the workflows that are required throughout cultivation, manufacturing, testing, distribution and retail, all while capturing important business intelligence data. Leveraging this business intelligence to analyze the trends of an operation — such as correlating the ratio of sales to a certain strain’s THC levels or understanding the demographic information on their key consumers — allows operators to make critical business decisions.
In order to accurately maintain the accountability of the data, the seed to sale system integrates with hardware such as scanners, printers and scales to document the unique identifying codes assigned to each cannabis plant and product throughout the supply chain. The data associated with the unique identifier is aggregated by the seed to sale software to allow operators to run their business, gain insights and remain compliant all from a single interface.
By definition, the meaning of the term seed to sale refers to the technological tracking of all cannabis product as it moves through the full supply chain, from the time of planting through to when it is purchased in a dispensary by a consumer or medical patient. The term seed to sale is unique to the cannabis industry and is a commercial software solution used in addition to regulatory track and trace reporting systems that cannabis licence holders are required to use in order to maintain compliance with government regulations.
The seed to sale journey begins when newly planted seeds are tagged with a unique identifier, like a barcode, a RFID tag or in the state of Utah, a solo code cryptographically secure digital trust mark. These identifying marks are scanned as the plant grows through to each stage, and then is harvested, dried, cured and trimmed. The identifier stays with the product as it moves from cultivation, and is processed and packaged, and is ultimately sold to another vendor or a retail customer. Using hardware that integrates into their seed to sale solution, cannabis operators and their staff scan these identifying codes, and the data is captured by the software and reported up to the track and trace regulatory system to maintain compliance with state regulations. The differentiator between seed to sale and the compliant workflows of a track and trace system is that seed to sale software complies the data collected throughout the supply chain for business intelligence and analytics. This aggregated data helps cannabis operators make data-driven decisions about their business.
Choosing a seed-to-sale software provider can be a difficult decision for any cannabis operator. As the cannabis industry grows larger and more competitive, so does the need for technology that supports your cannabis business operations. Seed-to-sale software should go beyond simply tracking and tracing information to stay compliant – it should also provide you with the information you need to run a more streamlined, profitable business.
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With so many vendors to choose from, how do you know you’re making the right choice? Our cannabis seed-to-sale software buyer’s guide can help ensure you are choosing the best fit for your business needs.
There are two main systems that cannabis operators use: seed-to-sale and track-and-trace. These software solutions are often confused for one another but it is important to know the difference between the two. Cannabis businesses, both recreational and medical, often rely on a combination of these two software systems to keep their operations compliant and efficient.
The easiest way to differentiate between the two systems is that track and trace is built for governmental oversight to monitor and maintain compliance while the seed to sale is specifically designed for cannabis business owners to run their day-to-day businesses within those required compliant workflows.
Seed-to-Sale vs. Track-and-Trace Webinar
Track-and-trace software is exactly as its name implies: it’s a system that tracks the movement of cannabis inventory through the supply chain. Data entered into track-and-trace systems by licensed cannabis businesses is aggregated by states in an attempt to get a holistic view of the cannabis industry within their borders. An important point to make is that track-and-trace systems are not built to help cannabis business owners with business management.
Track and Trace systems are usually mandated by each state or municipality and are fundamentally designed for the benefit of government entities to ensure cannabis operators are maintaining their required compliance rules and regulations.
The two primary focuses of the compliance tracking are related to the cultivation process around growing and curing the plants, and inventory tracking as the processed product moves through the supply chain towards the retail sale. The data collected through these processes is only a small fraction of the workflows and data needed to run an efficient cannabis operation. This is where seed to sale solutions come into play.
Seed-to-sale software is considered a business solution, and while it should ideally integrate with state traceability technology to eliminate the need for duplication of workflows and data into two systems, its value extends far beyond maintaining compliance.
Seed-to-sale software goes beyond simply capturing compliance data and is designed to provide full 360 visibility into each point in the supply chain, giving operators the insights into their business. By using this data, operators are able to make fully informed decisions to improve efficiencies and maximize their outcomes. Seed to sale software also streamlines the compliance workflows.
Using an integrated seed to sale solution, cannabis operators only need to enter compliance data once into their seed to sale platform which then automatically updates the state system. By choosing to utilize a seed-to-sale software in partnership with the state mandated track and trace compliance system, businesses are able to boost efficiency, transparency, and continued compliance.
Do you need to use a seed to sale solution?
You need a seed to sale solution if you intend to run an efficient, compliant and scalable cannabis business. The use of seed-to-sale software is not mandated by most cannabis regulators, leaving the cannabis licence holder to decide how they would like to satisfy the strict and complicated reporting requirements. In the past, cannabis cultivation staff relied on manually updated spreadsheets and by-hand calculations to manage their operations and their compliance requirements. However, as the industry continues to grow more sophisticated, the ad-hoc solutions of the early days are no longer sustainable.
Technology in the Cannabis Space
Similar to using a manual system, some operators still believe they can run a compliant operation relying solely on the basic compliance system of the government track and trace solutions. While entering data directly into a track and trace system keeps you compliant, it will not give operators the necessary tools to actually run a sustainable business. Track and trace systems are designed for the regulators to gain a comprehensive, aggregated view into all the legal cannabis business in their jurisdiction, but unlike seed to sale software, track and trace was not designed to help cannabis business owners with the day-to-day management of their full operations. While the track and trace software can help them gather their compliance data, it cannot provide the detailed insights needed to run an efficient cannabis business the way a seed to sale solution does.
Top 10 insights to help run your cannabis business
What you should look for in a seed to sale system is a comprehensive integration of cannabis workflows, compliance reporting and robust business tools. It cannot be emphasized enough that your seed-to-sale software should go beyond cannabis compliance tracking. It should provide a holistic, enterprise-grade solution for managing your entire operation, from the ground to retail shelves, no matter how big or small.
The seed to sale software you invest in should also provide a fast return — if your seed to sale software is not paying for itself within a year, you have the wrong software. For business owners who are mainly focused on a healthy bottom line, the biggest challenge is cost management — writing off expenses to align with 280E tax guidelines, ensuring the business stays in the black and keeping overhead expenses in check. Seed-to-sale software can help owners by tracking costs at every point in production, such as the cost of raw materials or ingredients, as well as rent and labor. The software eliminates the need for error-prone manual entry.
Seed to sale software must deliver on the following areas:
While the cannabis industry has workflows similar to those in other industries such as agriculture and consumer packaged goods (CPG), there are tasks that are important both legally and operationally that are truly unique. These range from tracking the movement of seeds and clones from propagation to harvest to managing the chain of custody during fleet transportation to dealing with the many legal requirements and reporting of payment tracking. Designing these workflows into software that helps operators maximize efficiencies and productivity at scale requires individuals who understand the daily operational nuances and KPIs of the industry.
Compliance is essential to running a cannabis business. Regulations are constantly changing and those geographic-specific laws dictate the compliance needs of an operation. For MSOs, regulatory requirements can have important differences between the multiple states in which they operate. Operators must keep up with this ever-changing world of regulations. That can be a daunting task if left to purely manual means, but seed to sale software integrated with compliance workflows can simplify and automate these workflows. Built-in compliance safeguards and integrations into state systems for operators enable tracking and tracing the course of product throughout the entire supply chain. By having a single point where all compliance integrations occur, there is a more automated connection to state compliance systems as regulations change.
No single piece of software can manage all of the complex operational needs and data flows of a cannabis business. A seed to sale solution should integrate technologies and the data from and to multiple vendors. An open API infrastructure allows seed to sale software platforms to provide additional functionality to a cannabis operation through integrations to 3rd party service providers such as accounting systems, online ordering, cashless payments, delivery, compliance, and state required consumer data protection laws.
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High data integrity and relevant analytics: In a competitive and maturing marketplace, better business decisions are made with data – whether those decisions are about growing, manufacturing, distribution, or retail operations. Whether the focus is on maximizing ROI today or planning for growth tomorrow, real time access into statistically relevant data within important workflows enables operators to more professionally manage and optimize their business using data-driven insights instead of guesswork. This kind of powerful information and analytics need to be available to both the most technical data scientist in an MSO as well as the non-technically experienced manager in the trenches, and should be a standard functionality of seed to sale solutions.
User experience is traditionally thought of in terms of the front end of a software platform – how intuitive it is to use, the way data and insights are displayed, and how it is designed to maximize productivity in terms of minimizing the number of clicks to complete important and common tasks. There is also a less visible part of the user experience that relates to the back end of the platform – the computational improvements made so data can be processed and displayed faster. In seed to sale solutions, an intuitive and efficient front-end and a speedy backend are both necessities in the fast-paced operations of the cannabis industry where simultaneously managing costs while maximizing insights that deliver opportunity is key.
As both operational consolidation and geographic expansion continue in the industry, new demands are placed on technology to respond to the rollup and land grab. Today’s seed to sale technology must be able to scale rapidly, efficiently, and accurately as a business transforms from a single location to dozens, if not more physical locations with specific operational and compliance needs. This kind of unforgiving rate of change and expansion in a complex market space is exactly what on-demand deployment of cloud-based technology was designed for. Choosing a seed to sale solution that is hosted on a secure cloud system, like AWS, should be a priority.
Software platform reliability has human, data, and technology systems components. The expectations from the cannabis industry with increasingly large operators is for a seed to sale solution to consistently deliver both highly experienced and responsive customer service, along with data reliability and software platform excellence that meets Silicon Valley enterprise standards.
For any enterprise, cybersecurity has a close relationship with both operational uptime (reliability) and data security, ownership, and privacy. Cannabis companies have the additional need to protect what they consider their ‘secret sauce’ particularly around efficiencies in production and processes as well as recipes. All of this intellectual property exists as workflows and data inside the operational seed to sale software platform where it needs to be protected from unauthorized access and theft.
The adoption of increasingly sophisticated, cannabis-specific software technology has become a must-have for the industry for optimizing operations, financial management, profitability, and compliance. In the new world of large-scale cannabis operations, grow facilities exceeding more than a million square feet are becoming more common. An operation of this size and sophistication simply can not function on a manual system, or on the bare basics of track and trace state systems. Using a seed to sale software solution on top of the required track and trace software automates compliances while giving business owners the advanced tools and insights to run a profitable and efficient operation. Truthfully, in the modern cannabis world, the use of seed to sale software has become a standard tablestake, and shouldn’t even be considered optional. Using a solution built specifically for the unique workflows of the cannabis industry gives operators an all-in-one solution that helps them efficiently manage all aspects of their business while automating and simplifying their compliance requirements.
Implementing a seed to sale system starts with choosing the right technology partner. As the industry grows larger and more competitive, so does the need for advanced technology that supports cannabis business operations across the full supply chain. Navigating the complex web of state regulations while managing inventory and keeping costs low takes time and energy — often at the expense of creating or expanding a healthy, profitable, and sustainable business. The adoption of increasingly sophisticated seed to sale software technology has become a must-have for the industry for optimizing operations, financial management, profitability, and compliance. The industry is seeing more forward-thinking business owners embracing the benefits that sophisticated seed to sale technology provides to accelerate the maturation of their supply chains and operations.
Choosing a seed to sale vendor that has specific and specialized experience in the industry is crucial. Many operators try to retrofit software solutions from different industries, only to find they can’t handle the complex workflows that are unique to the cannabis industry. Industry expertise and experience should factor into their technology and their team.
The seed-to-sale software you choose to implement should include:
Trends in seed to sale systems are being driven primarily by the massive growth and consolidation of the cannabis industry. As operations increase in size and sophistication, the technology needed to run these large-scale businesses becomes more critical. Cannabis business owners are also becoming more technology savvy, and are demanding increased functionality and features in the seed to sale solutions.