Best Cannabis Inventory Systems

Driven by legalization across states for medical and recreational use, the U.S. cannabis industry is witnessing unprecedented growth. A recent analysis from the Marijuana Business Factbook estimated its impact on the U.S. economy to exceed $155 billion by 2026. Entrepreneurs hoping to cash in on the novel cannabis market can leverage an efficient inventory system to streamline operations.

A cannabis inventory encompasses the cannabis product and its derivatives, accessories and branded merchandise held by the dispensary or retailer to sell for profit or utilize. Excellent inventory management systems are essential for any cannabis business or dispensary hoping to attain profitability. 

The reason is that aside from constituting the core aspect of the business expenses, local and state regulations are strict and complex to navigate. Failure to properly manage your inventory can go unnoticed until regulators audit your retail license. The penalty may include fines, license revocation and, in the most serious situations, criminal proceedings. It's therefore beneficial to clean up your inventory processes using an efficient system. An efficient inventory system helps you maintain full compliance, maximize profitability and streamline operations.

Best Cannabis POS Systems

An excellent cannabis inventory system can help you identify where your inventory is, how much you have available and when you need to reorder. All these are essential in effectively serving your customers while remaining competitive in an increasingly crowded industry. Here is a look at some of the best cannabis inventory systems.

• Best for ERP Scaling and API Integrations: Flourish 
• Best for Simplicity: GrowFlow
• Best for Mobile: BLAZE
• Best for Manufacturers and Distributors: Distru
• Best Overall: Canix

Best for ERP Scaling and API Integrations: Flourish

• States supported: Over 17 states, including California, Colorado, Texas, Florida, Arizona and Nevada.
• Software Integration: LeafLink, QuickBooks, Zapier
• Pricing: Quote required
• Customer support: 24/7 live support
• Compliance and Reporting Integration: Metrc
• Hardware integration: Android mobile

Pros

• Inventory multichannel management
• Supports Android OS

Cons

• Lacks free trial

Flourish is a cannabis-specific seed-to-sale supply tracking and inventory chain management tool that helps operators boost efficiency while maintaining compliance.

Founded in 2017, the software prides itself as an enterprise resources planning (ERP) solution for every business operating in the cannabis seed-to-sale industrial cycle. Highlights of its features include order approvals, sales rep tracking, multiple fulfillment workflows and custom notes. As a robust inventory management system, Flourish helps you locate, adjust, lock and transform all your inventories.

The software, therefore, services clients ranging from cultivators to retailers. Aside from its inventory management functionality, Flourish incorporates key point-of-sale (POS) features that help cannabis businesses turbocharge sales operations and maximize profit while maintaining compliance.

Its core selling point is the robust API support for external integration, which is vital in ERP. Therefore, the software can sync with everyday tools like Zapier, Salesforce and QuickBooks, which many cannabis business use in day-to-day operation. Furthermore, Flourish offers android mobile support for on-the-go flexibility with product scanning and real-time inventory monitoring or management features.

Suppose you run a cannabis business with different standalone processes and need to integrate it into a single central operating system. In that case, Flourish's zero-cost, practical integrations, robust API and webhook engines and seed-to-sale tracking make it the ideal choice. This software features also facilitate ERP scaling.

Best for Simplicity: GrowFlow

• States supported: Arizona, California, Oregon, Oklahoma and many more
• Software Integration: Quickbooks, Dutchie, Jane, Springbig
• Pricing: Quote required
• Customer support: Phone and online support
• Compliance and Reporting Integration: Metrc
• Hardware integration: N/A

Pros

• Offers free trial
• Highly intuitive user interface

Cons

• No functional CRM support

With over 400 million processed transactions amounting to over $2 billion since deployment nationwide, GrowFlow is an end-to-end inventory management, compliance solutions and POS system to beat.

Like most canna-business software solutions, GrowFlow helps operators to optimize and streamline seed-to-sale operations — from inventory management to analytics, state reporting and POS. However, its simple, highly intuitive and user-friendly interface truly sets the software apart from others. The implication is that you don't need any prior training or specialized IT knowledge to operate the GrowFlow inventory system or perform simple repair and diagnostics operations.

Besides the easy-to-read screens that make navigation a breeze, excellent instructional materials help you get around in the software. In an era where most software applications are crammed with complex features that complicate navigation, simplicity is a key selling point for GrowFlow. Perhaps that is the reason why it is trusted by more than 1,400 cannabis cultivators, processors, distributors and retailers.

GrowFlow produces informative analytics that can help improve your overall business operations. For instance, the software automatically reports top monthly buyers, top-selling products, least-sold products and most-ordered products, allowing for better operation visibility. Other notable system features include sale status tracking, a live store for order placement, a Map and a comprehensive stock and upcoming fulfillment list. In Jan 2019, GrowFlow acquired LeafOp POS, further expanding its business and reinforcing it as a key competitor in the cannabis business software industry.

Best for Mobile: BLAZE

• States supported: Over nine states, including California
• Software Integration: Metrc, BioTrack, Leafly, Weedmaps, Onfleet, Tymber, Headset, Green Check, Springbig.
• Pricing: Quote required
• Customer support: Business hours, 24/7 live support and online.
• Compliance and Reporting Integration: Metrc
• Hardware integration: Any iOS device, Zebra ZD410, Star mc3 Print, DuraScan

Pros

• Mobile apps
• Extensive features
• Numerous integrations 

Con

• Pricing info not readily available
• Mobile apps only available for iOS users

BLAZE is another top-tier cannabis ERP solution that facilitates operational efficiency via its cloud-hosted web browser and mobile app for iOS devices. As an all-around cannabis-specific software, BLAZE is in a class of its own — a software solution built for cultivators by cultivators. 

Its software suite encompasses seed-to-sale, distribution and dispensary POS software. Therefore, with BLAZE, you can seamlessly execute seed-to-sale tracking and manage inventory, purchase orders, shipment and invoicing. BLAZE real-time inventory and shipments management ensures processing accuracy and simplifies the inventory transfer while maintaining compliance. The enterprise-level software eliminates booking errors due to inaccurate digital inventory.

Like most other cannabis-based software, BLAZE is designed to make your entire operations workflow more efficient by implementing key functionality in its suite of software services. Aside from POS, delivery and distribution services, some of these functions include eCommerce support, customer personalization, state reporting and a loyalty program.

One of its key selling points is BLAZE Retail — a highly secured and robust mobile app for iOS devices (iPhones and iPads). This app maximizes productivity by reducing transaction time and increasing revenue generation. Suppose you've got an office environment set up with Apple devices, or you don't mind setting up an ERP system with iOS devices. In that case, this software might be a good fit for you. 

Best Overall: Canix

• States supported: 10+ U.S. states
• Software Integration: QuickBooks, Green Check Verified, Leaf Trade, LeafLink, Onfleet, Sage Intacct
• Pricing: Quote required
• Customer support: Live phone and email support with Metrc-trained representatives, seven days a week
• Compliance and Reporting Integration: Metrc
• Hardware integration: iOS and Android devices

Pros

• Excellent customer service 
• Robust API integration 
• Excellent user interface 

Cons

• No free trial

For a company that was founded just three years ago, Canix is taking the cannabis-specific retail software industry by storm. Since its founding in 2019, the software has been used to process over 100,000 transactions amounting to over $500 million. As a seed-to-sale ERP software, Canix seeks to overcome regulatory hurdles that make compliance difficult through efficient inventory management, thereby streamlining overall operation. Canix currently services over 2,300 cannabis facilities encompassing canna-business of all sizes (small, medium and large) across 15 U.S. states. 

Like other cannabis ERP software, Canix will ultimately drive up operational efficiency from cultivation to distribution compliantly. Canix, however, does not stop here. The software fields a highly refined user interface that not only improves but systematically simplifies the complexities and hurdles you would otherwise encounter with a regular ERP solution. 

For instance, with the graphical and pictorial UI displays, it becomes easier to visualize your overall operation. Such visualization offers you greater oversight and complete control of your inventory and sales data.

Furthermore, with Canix, you can easily track your cannabis inventory through the supply chain and access key inventory reports for more operations insights. The software's inventory management services also cover non-cannabis inventory, allowing you to view the usage, quantities and cost of planters, manufacturing ingredients and other materials.

The software incorporates a robust API that facilitates external integration with cannabis-specific business tools like Wayfast, Onfleet, LeafLink and Growlink. You can easily leverage its open API to customize a software stack that works best for you. Canix also offers support for mobile iOS, Windows and Android devices. Besides its excellent features, customer service is top-notch, as shown by reviews across platforms and an over-96-point net-promoter score.

Canix's practical user interface that facilitates inventory tracking and reporting across the supply chain, great API for external integration and excellent customer service (despite being relatively new in the industry) make it the best overall cannabis inventory system.

Best for Manufacturers and Distributors: Distru

• States supported: 15 U.S. states, including California, Colorado, Ohio, Arizona and Michigan
• Software Integration: LeafLink, Google Data Studio, QuickBooks, Metrc
• Pricing: Quote required
• Customer support: Online support is available 24/7
• Compliance and Reporting Integration: Metrc
• Hardware integration: Android devices

Pros

• Excellent customer service
• Simple interface
• Numerous integrations

Cons

• Price not disclosed upfront

Distru offers manufacturers an effective platform to seamlessly carry out compliant extraction, production and packaging. Distru incorporates features that mimic on-the-ground manufacturing reality, enabling you to mirror your operational processes accurately while getting real-time visibility into your inventory and supply chain. 

It is optimized to cater to tracking and automatically syncing manufactured produce with warehouse inventory. 

With Distru, manufacturers and distributors can easily monitor, create and fulfill orders across multiple warehouses. Distru's inventory management features are heavily developed to make cannabis manufacturing and distribution as efficient as possible. For instance, with the software's inventory control, you can track all non-cannabis and cannabis inventories across numerous warehouses and locations, including parts, work-in-progress and packages. 

Other notable inventory features include Distru's test result management, product assemblies, order fulfillment and distribution tracking.

Distru's extensive inventory management functionality roughly translates to increased oversight and operations control — a fundamental catalyst for increased operations efficiency. Ultimately, this software intuitively aggregates all the vital elements of your cannabis business using its best tools to maintain operational control and deliver scalable growth to your business.

Why Do You Need Cannabis Inventory Software?

Cannabis inventory management encompasses monitoring and regulating sales, securing and organizing items and fulfilling orders. It aids a dispensary in keeping track of things that have been sold, damaged or returned. Here are some ways inventory software helps to streamline operations.

• Compliance: As your business operations grow, your inventory also grows. And with the strict legislation and regulations guiding the use and distribution of cannabis, managing such inventory while maintaining compliance becomes a complex and challenging issue. However, with pre-programmed compliance guidelines, navigating this compliance hurdle and remaining profitable without draining your human or material resources is easy.

• Increased productivity: Besides staying compliant, incorporating cannabis inventory software centralizes your business operations around a central inventory system. Duplicate and redundant tasks are eliminated. Streamlined processes afforded by the software will ensure optimized workflow through the inventory from product entry to sales thereby increasing your overall business productivity.
• Increased revenue: Increased output at fixed input means that you'll be saving more production and capital costs while earning higher ROI. A reinvestment in production and capital costs will subsequently grow revenue exponentially.

Benefits of Cannabis Inventory Systems

Incorporating a cannabis inventory system for your cannabis business will benefit your business operations in many ways. Here are some of the benefits of using a cannabis inventory system.

• Simplicity and convenience: Cannabis inventory management software eliminates the complexities of accurately tracking and managing cannabis inventories. The system heralds simplicity and convenience, with every inventory management operation accessible through a single screen at your fingertips. Inventory managers can perform core inventory operations like fulfilling orders, recalling defective products and regulating sales with just the push of a button without disrupting operations flow.
• Efficient and time-saving: With centralization, real-time inventory control features and automatic reporting features, cannabis inventory management eliminates the time and effort needed to input product entries. Additionally, it eliminates manually checking inventory status, writing and submitting state reports and other redundant inventory processes. The system will automatically complete these steps, freeing time for other productive tasks.
• Less error prone: Manually handling cannabis inventory while keeping compliance guidelines in mind can be very complicated. It is easy for the inventory management team or manager to make errors. A cannabis inventory system will eliminate these underlying human errors with its precision programming and accuracy calibrations, making your cannabis operations error-free.

Common Inventory Management Strategies

To better streamline cannabis inventory management, retail managers can employ fundamental inventory management strategies. Here are the most common strategies.

First-in, First-out (FIFO)

The first-in, first-out strategy dictates that retail outlets sell their products in order of acquisition, i.e., selling older products before newer ones. This process ensures that perishable goods closer to expiration get sold before their expiry date, boosting profitability and preventing stockouts. This is the best practice for perishable goods like cannabis.

Last-in, First-out (LIFO)

In this strategy, products are sold as soon as they arrive, i.e., the earliest good gets sold first. It is most suitable for non-perishable goods. This practice encourages products lingering in inventories and potentially expiring, which makes it a bad practice for dispensaries.

ABC Analysis

This strategy leans toward a fully comprehensive inventory management strategy. It groups products according to their profitability against how frequently they are sold. With this strategy, dispensary owners can quickly identify their most profitable (best selling) and poor selling products at a glance.

Frequently Asked Questions