Home Articles How to choose the right compliant payroll solution for your cannabis business

How to choose the right compliant payroll solution for your cannabis business

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Cannabis dispensary is new, unique and ever evolving, thus having a compliant payroll for dispensaries is very important.

To run a successful cannabis dispensary business, it must always comply with the changing statutory laws, rules, regulations and HR policies that vary from state to state.

Being adherent to the relevant laws ensures that the cannabis dispensary remains operational and adds to credibility with clients and the regulatory bodies.

The tedious and manual process of managing and operating employee systems, particularly regarding payroll is effectively solved.

With the added requirement to always ensure compliance with the constantly evolving HR laws and policies, the experience is challenging and time-consuming.

Using dispensary technology designed for cannabis businesses can help stores succeed, and implementing a payroll software solution will contribute to the business’ growth.

Therefore, the question is, what does a compliant payroll system for your dispensary look like, and how can you find the one that is the best fit for your needs?

A payroll for dispensaries is an HR solution with integrated on-premise or cloud-based payroll software that assists a cannabis dispensary owner manage employee payroll.

Payroll entails efficiently working with the set pay structures, accuracy, automation, real-time payroll reporting, and keeping the business compliant to ever-changing policies.

A great payroll for dispensaries software should be:

  • Easy to use
  • Integrate seamlessly with a cannabis dispensary’s existing software suite, for example, POS system, time clocks and scheduling.
  • Able to handle compliance for both the business and employees.
  • Automatically match employee approved hours directly to payroll.

The cannabis dispensary industry is a highly regulated entity.

There is a need to invest in technology to automate processes in managing people and streamlining operations so that they are aligned in compliance with the regulations.

In this article, we will cover the five helpful tips that should be considered when choosing what compliant payroll for dispensaries solution is best for you.

  • How to choose a specialized provider for your dispensary
  • Selecting a solution that integrates with your time tracking software
  • Finding a platform that saves you money while scheduling
  • Selecting a time saving and automated platform
  • An HR solution that offers compliance

Choose a specialist in payroll for dispensaries

Running a cannabis retail store is unique and requires finding a provider with extensive insight and knowledge of the cannabis industry.

A specialized provider with expertise and in the know of the cannabis industry’s insights can take this data and design a tailor made payroll system for cannabis dispensaries.

Finding and choosing the right provider with a payroll solution unique to the cannabis business ensures that you can effectively manage your employees while being mindful of the compliance requirements of cannabis dispensaries.

In addition, it’s essential to find a solution that makes operating the dispensaries legal and adapting to new cannabis industry rules and regulations easy.

The great news is that technology companies like KayaPush are emerging to offer payroll for dispensaries software solutions explicitly made for cannabis stores.

The solutions are fully integrated and cloud-based, thus easy to use and saves dispensary owners’ time with intelligent automation, calculations, data transfers and compliance.

Tech companies know local cannabis business laws & and regulations, take care of all the necessary paperwork and update business owners on the changes in the legal settings.

Mary Ann, Owner and COO Riverside Wellness, uses a cannabis-specific payroll solution for her company that has helped them manage their operations and payroll with ease.

It has saved them 15 hours per month and allowed the business to reinvest that time into sourcing the safest and most effective forms of medical marijuana, employee training & development and providing patients with clear, science-based information.

Opt for a payroll for dispensary that integrates with your time tracking software

As a cannabis dispensary business owner, you are primarily responsible for managing your employees effectively and efficiently in order to harness the best outcomes.

This responsibility means measuring staff hours and shifts so that employees are working their mandated hours and the dispensary complies with the local employee labor laws.

It’s best to find solutions that integrate with the rest of your dispensary software, in this case, your time tracking software as most businesses in the cannabis trade struggle with the complex process of manually inputting and then transferring data.

The data exists on different platforms that often do not integrate well together.

Dealing with this information is a labor-intensive and consuming process that is prone to human error and could therefore cost the dispensary money and time in dealing with penalties due to failure to observe the set rules and regulations.

As a dispensary owner, ensuring the payroll for dispensaries solution integrates with your time tracking software saves time, money and resources by consolidating and updating all the employee information into a central location to be retrieved and utilized easily.

The integrations will eliminate the need for manual management of employee information and streamline all-time tracking information to ease and simplify the payroll process.

A payroll for your dispensary will manage employee salaries/wages, calculate deductions, complete all tax filings and make direct contributions to the tax authority.

The payroll for dispensaries solution will seamlessly integrate with the time tracking software to streamline the operation so that employees’ clock-ins and breaks data is recorded and automatically synchronised, matched and billed in payroll.

Automated ensures that staff only work their assigned hours and take mandated breaks.

An employee time tracking system is suitable for logging schedules and clock-in times; however, the KayaPush time tracking software for cannabis stores takes it a step further and offers a streamlining of all employee data across the system to sync to payroll.

Canada-based Highland Cannabis, with a people-heavy model staff count of 26, uses the KayaPush “time clock technology that has facial recognition to confirm the staff identity.”

Afterward, the approved hours are automatically streamed to the payroll, which ensures employees are paid accurately and on time every single time.

Be sure it will help you save money while scheduling

Payroll providers that integrate with your scheduling system allow you the unique opportunity to forecast your labor and set yourself up for success.

They leverage features like calculating overtime or holiday pay when you create schedules to save time and send alerts during staff shifts when staff go into overtime.

When selecting the best payroll solution, consider one that saves time and money.

A payroll for dispensaries system allows you to automate employee schedules, allow staff to swap shifts, request and share internal communication in a centralized space.

Additionationally it should provide real-time analytics pulling data and reports so that a cannabis dispensary owner is able to make data-based decisions.

As you plan to hire and pay employees, a compliant payroll for your dispensary will save you thousands of dollars running payroll in a matter of minutes based on employees’ information from their work schedules, shifts, and time offs.

In addition, it will save the business money by tracking labor budgets against actual costs in real-time, ensuring dispensaries’ specific staffing needs are catered to.

Scheduling software can save money for the dispensary in the following ways:

Allows for open channels of communication so your teams can discuss scheduling issues with each other. Assisting each other helps better motivation, morale and teamwork.

Sets up time-off request rules, analyzes shift swaps and the associated labor costs, and rejects or approves requests. This helps avoid employee burnout.

Mandates breaks to remain compliant with labor laws and ensure employees’ well-being. Overworked staff is less productive and unable to provide high-quality customer service.

Integrating payroll with your scheduling software reduces labor costs and eliminates the need to calculate payroll manually. It enables you to track employee hours, manage shifts, and monitor wages in a centralized system.

A fingerprint or photo stamp clock-in system compares with scheduled hours, so employees are paid accurately for time worked.

Utilizing labor vs. sales data to forecast staffing needs saving on unnecessary labor costs.

Choose a platform that offers automated tip and overtime calculations
Manual calculations take forever and are prone to human error.

When you select a compliant dispensary payroll solution, you don’t have to worry about doing manual calculations because they are already done for you.

Beyond the calculation, opt for a compliant solution that will automatically remit your payroll deductions and ensure your taxes are done right.

A payroll for dispensaries should streamline employee paperwork to have online access to their documentation, for example, pay stubs and tax forms, among others.

A compliant payroll system consolidates all employee data in one place and eases monitoring minimum daily calculations, split shift premiums and minimum tip top-offs.

The payroll provider should offer a solution that takes away all the guesswork and time-consuming tasks of understanding the impact of overtime on payroll and taxes.

This facilitates ensuring that employees are accurately compensated and taxes are correctly remitted to the IRS in compliance with the mandated labor laws & regulations.

Opt for a payroll for dispensaries that offers compliance features across the board

Compliance doesn’t start or stop with compliant dispensary payroll solutions. The entire software suite should offer a compliant and ideally streamlined solution.

Having a solution caters to the changing HR policies in the cannabis industry and states so that employees are classified and tagged to compliance requirements.

A compliant dispensary payroll system provides compliance tips as well as handles and updates cannabis businesses on the changing laws in their jurisdictions so that they operate in compliance abiding by all the stipulated regulations.

An example of how payroll software can keep the business compliant looks like this.

  • At the dispensary, employees are required to identify and clock in during their shifts.
  • Using features like facial recognition time tracking confirms who, what time and schedules are attached to the employees.
  • This information is compiled, and the approved employee hours worked are automatically streamlined to payroll.

With KayaPush payroll software being designed to seamlessly integrate with your dispensary’s time tracking, POS and HR systems, it should be easy to run payroll calculations automatically, have access to digitized employee data and licenses on file and make timely and accurate tax fillings all from one central and secure location.

The payroll software also integrates with POS systems checking the inventory to ensure it meets the required compliance laws.

KayaPush payroll software system has experts to support and update compliance based on local cannabis laws and regulations governing the business’ location.

Hand Holding Marijuana Leaf with Cannabis Plants in Background

In Conclusion

Finding a payroll system for your cannabis dispensary can be challenging.

In addition to the challenges of managing employees, there’s the added difficulty in cannabis businesses of ensuring that they’re always in compliance with the constantly changing rules and laws so as to prevent running into any regulatory issues.

The unique needs for a cannabis dispensary make it necessary to find an automated payroll software solution that is easy to navigate, handles compliance and shares regulatory updates, has the cannabis-specific industry knowledge, insights and skillset, and integrates with your current dispensary software.

Payroll tech helps you save time and money by streamlining operations so that it can be reinvested in growing the business and creating a better relationship with employees.

You should leverage the tips we have shared above to find a compliant payroll for dispensaries that caters to the business needs and goals of your cannabis dispensary.

Gerald Ainomugisha is a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Content Writer and Top Rated Plus on Upwork.