Whether your company sells firecrackers edibles, grows cannabis flower, or does cannabis lab testing, you need to be on top of your payroll.
Payroll is so important in the cannabis industry because this is one of the most heavily regulated markets in the states. Falling short of these payroll standards can lead to serious fines that can set back your profits or even shut down your business. This is why you need to follow these basic steps to stay on top of your payroll.
Here’s what you need to master payroll in a challenging and fastest growing industry.
Why Cannabis Payroll is so Hard
There’s a few major reasons why payroll is so hard in the cannabis industry.
The first, and the biggest, is that the cannabis industry is heavily regulated. Not only that, but regulators are also watching the cannabis industry very closely. Your payroll will be under a lot of scrutiny and falling short of anything but near perfection is going to mean fines.
The next challenge is that the cannabis industry is still fairly new. This means there aren’t as many readily established products and services to help you stay on top of your payroll.
The cannabis industry also exists in a legal gray area. Until cannabis is federally legalized, many cannabis industry companies are going to have to work around the fact that banking, finance, and other money matters are much harder to handle than industries that are legal on Federal and State levels.
There are four basic systems that can help you improve your cannabis payroll.
The Four Basic Cannabis Payroll Systems
These are the four basic types of payroll whether you’re selling weed firecrackers to your local dispensaries or handling production for prerolls.
In-House Payroll
It’s pretty common for small companies to handle their payroll in the house. This means that business owners, management, or HR handles payroll. This could be a good solution if you’ve got a very small operation with a simple payroll system, but you might quickly outgrow having one of your other employees handle payroll in addition to their other responsibilities.
Accountants
This is why many cannabis companies hire their own accountants to handle payroll. You can even find accounts that are starting to specialize in working in the cannabis industry who can help you stay on the right side of the law as well as make sure that everyone is paid on time.
Payroll Companies
The bigger your company gets, the more complicated your payroll is going to be. This is why Allah knows larger cannabis companies hire external payroll companies to handle the process for them. You can think about hiring this as having a dedicated team of accountants to manage your payroll for you instead of having an in-house employee handle the job.
Software
Software is also a viable solution for managing payroll. There’s a lot of numbers moving around when it comes time to pay your staff and human error can lead to serious problems down the road. The last thing you want is to be sued by regulators as well as your employees for messing up their pay.
Software can help you streamline the payroll process, but it’s worth taking a closer look at using software for payroll.
Does Software Help With Cannabis Payroll?
Software is a lot like fire crackers, it’s easy and fun so long as you have the right tools on hand.
Software has one major advantage when helping out with your payroll. Humans are just kind of bad when it comes to managing a lot of numbers. Computers happen to be great at handling this kind of information.
Even if you have a relatively small company, software can help your payroll become much simpler. These software programs can also track information like who works how many hours, staff login, and other information that can be useful for both internal metrics as well as information that regulators need.
Starting Off on the Right Foot
The best thing you can do for your growing cannabis businesses is to start off on the right foot every chance you get.
If you’re just opening your doors, you should hire some cannabis industry finance experts to go over your numbers. They can even help you set up a payroll plan that will grow as your business grows. You should also give informational packets to newly hired employees that outline your payroll policies as well as the state regulations that make payroll in the cannabis industry different from other places they might have worked.