Top 5 Inventory Mistakes Dispensaries Make

Keeping a close eye on dispensary inventory is imperative to maintaining a profitable and compliant marijuana business. Establishing an inventory protocol can help your business identify any potential problem areas in the supply chain.

Occasionally mistakes are made, after all we’re are only human. However, creating redundancy measures can quell mistakes before they effect your dispensary bottom line or put your cannabis business at risk.

Today we’ll be reviewing some common dispensary inventory errors and ways your shop can avoid these issues.

No Pre-packaging

It’s understandable that some marijuana businesses prefer not to pre-package their flower so they can weigh heavy and avoid packaging time. However, investing a few hours each week to pre-package flower will go along way in preventing loss.

Using promotions such as 4 gram eighths are great at driving sales, just be sure to label these pre-packaged promotions so there are no accidental hookups. Another advantage to pre-packaging product is reduced transaction times. Serving a patient is much more efficient when budtenders can quickly ring up the specific strain rather than trying to precisely weigh the flower.

Lack of Training

Lack of training is a common problem for dispensaries. Hiring experienced managers and budtenders is good start, but training all staff on your dispensary’s specific protocols and POS system is essential to reducing inventory mistakes.

Typically dispensary POS companies will be happy to setup free training sessions with management and budtenders to ensure everyone has a clear understanding of how to operate the software. Every medical marijuana dispensary should take advantage of this opportunity.

Dispensary owners should also have at least two responsible managers who are entrusted to oversee the inventory. Two brains are better than one, especially when it comes to maintaining accurate counts.

Neglecting Counts

This brings us to our next common mistake which is neglecting to make frequent counts of all stock. It’s easy to put inventory counts on the back burner when your dispensary services a high volume of customers but this will inevitably lead to product loss at some point.

In a perfect world, dispensary inventory reports are taken daily but often times they’re only done once or twice a week. It can be time consuming, but when it comes to staying compliant and managing product loss you don’t want to delay this process. There is simply too much at stake.

Manual Data Entry

Hopefully, most cannabis businesses have opted to use an advanced dispensary POS system to avoid manual data entry which is prone to human error. Manually entering inventory or product information can be excruciating.

Automating this process will save hours of time and virtually eliminate the margin of error. Smart marijuana POS systems, such as IndicaOnline, use barcode scanners to quickly add items to the dispensary inventory as well as a patient’s order.

Inaccurate Reporting

Submitting inaccurate reports for state compliance is one of the quickest ways your marijuana dispensary can get closed down. This is why it is so essential to have multiple managers as well as the owner review all reporting before it is sent to the state.

If the stock and sales numbers don’t add up correctly, you could easily find your dispensary in quite the quandary. IndicaOnline POS software notifies management of any discrepancies in the sales or inventory. Once all the information is correct, the reports are automatically submitted avoiding costly delays.

Implementing a marijuana POS system that features comprehensive dispensary inventory management tools is the best way to avoid loss and stay compliant. Sign-up for a free training session with your staff to see how our services can eliminate these common inventory mistakes.