There's a lot of decisions to make when choosing the correct cultivation management platform for your grow. Read below for a few considerations that will help you choose the right product for your business!
Introduction - why choosing the right software for your grow is important
Picking the right software is vital to the success of your grow.
Why? Choosing the right software to fit your cultivation’s specific needs can be the difference between frustrated growers, wasted money and time, versus using something that makes a difference for your team, and allows you to be a more profitable cannabis business.
Along with this, as states continue to legalize across the country, markets mature and become more competitive, and profit margins will get tighter. Having a way to track profitability and efficiency for every part of your cannabis business becomes absolutely necessary. Software, while it requires an initial investment of time and money, is the best way to do this.
So, we know it’s important, but how do you pick it? There are many considerations to make sure you’re choosing the right product. Below is a framework to follow to make sure you choose the right cannabis software for your business:
- Types of cannabis software – what are they?
- What are your needs – figure out where your pain points are
- Research – different ways to vet whether a company is worth it
- Final criteria for making a decision
Type of cannabis software
Enterprise resource planning
What’s an ERP? Simplified, it’s a piece of software that brings together different parts of the business under one roof – these can include accounting, inventory, ordering, and HR.
ERP’s are usually for bigger shops. They also (this is cannabis specific) have strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes they’re not customizable enough to fit well with every kind of business. Other times, they can be overly complex, and the sunk time to learn and utilize them isn’t worth it.
We recommend only using an ERP if your an established and scaled business, that has the need to for comprehensive tracking of everything that happens from seed to sale, at scale. Otherwise, if you have a smaller team, the cost investment, along with the expertise needed to use it, will outweigh the usefulness.
Cannabis seed to sale software
Need to be compliant with your states regulations? The purpose of seed to sale software is to track the cannabis plants from when they’re a seed in prop, all the way through to when they’re sold to customers as dried and cured flower. The traceability, and compliance for the plants is necessary for every supply chain.
Given that many of the state-mandated products, like METRC, aren’t very intuitive, many grows choose to use thrid-party options that sit on top of it.
Companies like GrowFlow, and Canix are viable tools to help manage compliance. They report to METRC directly.
In picking a seed to sale platform that’s right for you, ask them about their approach to compliance, and also accessing the data for you to see. Making sure they sync up regularly is important.
Cultivation management software
General solutions for compliance, and financials aside, there’s more specialized software that grows can use for cultivation and plant growth specifically.
Why use management software in the cultivation? Well, labor is always a cannabis businesses’ biggest expense, so optimizing how you grow is crucial to your bottom line. Inefficient labor can hamstring your business.
There’s quite a few options on the market for cultivation scheduling and management. Knowing what your needs are will help you to choose what’s right for you.
Before you go looking, figure out what your needs are
Now that we have an overview of the different kinds of cannabis specific software, figuring out how to choose one is next. But, how do you know?
First, you need to indentify your companies need. Are you just starting out with 5k sqft. of canopy? Then an ERP probably isn’t necessary – you can keep track of everything in excel.
Does your state require METRC compliance? Depending on whether they do or don’t will help steer you towards the correct seed to sale solution.
Do you have issues with labor efficiency? If you do, looking at different management platforms is probably a good idea.
It’s really grow specific for what your needs are. In the end, the best way to decide what to look for, is to go to your partners, managers, and growers, and ask them what they’re frustrated with. This will give you the best way forward to make an educated decision on what platforms to look for.
Researching different products - how to do it
There’s many way to judge a product. In cannabis, it can also be a little more difficult since it’s a newer market. Still, there’s a few key pieces of information to cover to ensure you’re getting a good product.
Word of mouth
Since the cannabis community is small, getting a direct referral from another grower is often the best way to decide whether a platform is worth looking at. Some companies (like ours, PlanaCan), rely on word of mouth almost exclusively.
Online directories
Searching online, or googling can work. But, if you want more specific information, using industry directories like MMJ Biz Daily or Cannabis Business Executive can help sift through the pile quicker. Both these resources give you links that go directly to each companies website.
Tradeshows and events
This method is we think, one of the best you can choose to pursue. Walking a tradeshow, finding a product you need, and actually talking to the people that work at that company in person will give you a great feel for whether their product is right for you.
Events are also great ways to network with other growers. This intersects with the word of mouth approach above, but the growing community is tight knit, and if you ask, almost everyone is willing to help out.
Criteria for making a final decision
Functionality
You need to ask the question of does the software do exactly what you need it to do? Or does it come with way more than you need. The answer to this question is important because if the product is too robust, onboarding your team will take a lot of time, and may not be able to undersatnd everything a given platform has to offer.
Customer support
This is absolutely crucial to your success with a piece of software. If you need help, or something isn’t working, having a timely response is the difference between the product being useful, or a hinderance to your business.
Select cannabis software that prides itself on customer service, and you’ll ensure your money is well spent.
Ease of use
When choosing, keep in mind who will be using the platform? Will it be management, ownership, or employees? If it’s management, they’ll spend more time at their computers if it’s web based. But, if it’s meant for workers that are in the grow during the day, then having a mobile app is a plus.
Bottom line, a good thing to keep in mind is – the harder the system is to use, the harder it will be to adopt.
Credibility
When searching through each company, check to see who else is using the software. Are those other businesses similar to yours? Do they have good experiences with the software?
Sometimes, vendors will actually connect you with a grow they’re already working with. This is a great opportunity to ask tough questions, to see if the product is actually for you.
Cost vs. value
This is a big one. For anything you pay for, you want to make sure the money your spending is less than than the value the software provides for your cultivation.
An example of this is how PlanaCan explains their price vs. value. PlanaCan builds task management software for the grow. Their value prop is that they take all the notebooks, spreadsheets, and whiteboards that most cultivations use currently, and put that all into a suite of software on Web, and phone.
To explain their pricing, they guarantee the cultivator that they’ll save at least 2 hours a week on their tasking and scheduling, grow wide. Their product costs less than the 8 hours a week the grower saves in time, so it’s a net positive to buy the product.
The takeaway
There’s lots that goes into choosing the right software for your cannabis business. Most important, however, is knowing what’s right for you before you approach a vendor. Your personal needs will dictate every other step of the process.
After that, using the above framework – vetting each business, asking your peers, and making sure your employees can use it are all important to get you over the finish line.
A final note – remember that most companies will negotiate! Don’t be afraid to ask for a different deal, like yearly payments vs. monthly, or getting dedicated support added in to close. They’ll often be open to these asks!
Growing with PlanaCan
At PlanaCan, we make purpose built software to help commercial growers manage everything that happens in their grow. If your interested, reach out to us. We promise we can answer any questions related to everything we detailed in the article above. We’ve also got buttons all over this site to get in contact with us 🙂
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