How to Expedite Inventory for your Dispensary

Between blind counts, monthly counts, and quarterly counts, running inventory is often and it is tedious. The hyper-specific regulations and required reporting don’t make the process any easier, but we may be able to. Utilizing our team’s years of experience in cannabis inventory and cannabis compliance, here are five ways to speed up your dispensary’s inventory counts. 

Swap Cardboard for Clear Plastic

A lot of inventory vaults utilize the same cardboard boxes that medicated product with some sort of bin tag. The snag that can slow down inventory counts is that cardboard boxes are bulky, can fall apart, and have poor visibility into the products inside. By recycling those cardboard boxes and upgrading to plastic bins, your inventory team has constant visibility into products on hand. While there may be a shift or two used to implement and train on the new product organization methods, in the long run it will keep your team tuned in. 

Set Boundaries with Partners

Strong advice in general, but setting clear boundaries and expectations with your vendor partners will keep your backroom moving smoothly. Intake of product can be tedious and tricky to allocate labor for- especially when deliveries are unpredictable. Buyers, operational managers, and inventory team members can agree together on specific hours or days that deliveries are accepted. Some of our ‘must haves’ in dispensary and partner delivery expectations are: 

• Deliveries can only be accepted between 9:00AM – 4:00PM Monday through Thursday 
• If orders are more than 24 hours late, we cannot accept the shipment 
• All budtender samples or promotional products must be clearly labeled 

Naturally you may need to add your own expectations tailored to your location or team, but by making it clear when you are able to accept, you can better staff your team and plan for incoming product. It’s a small tweak that pays dividends when you have intake and inventory prep down to a science. 

FIFO and Move Slow SKUs

One key element of a smooth inventory is reducing waste. One common way cannabis ends up having to be destroyed is that it is expired per your locality’s regulations. To avoid having product to waste out and deal with in your inventory cycles, do regular reviews and reporting on product by expiration date. This lets you know what’s moving and also gives insight into vendors who perhaps aren’t delivering their freshest product to you. Start with implementing a common technique used with perishables- ‘first in, first out’ or FIFO. Simply put, newer items go in the back, older items to the front so the older items get sold first. Implementing this will save time with reorders, inventory, and reducing waste. 

You’ll have to move quickly on getting any product that will expire in the next sixty days sold through your dispensary. For items that have a decent amount of quantity, you could discount the items and frame it as a brand spotlight. If you have some expiring SKUs with small quantities, consider using them as employee incentives. Doing medicated product giveaways with customers has varying levels of legality across the states, so be careful if you explore that venture. Going forward, expiration reports will make this process easier and easier and long-term reduce waste. 

Regular Categorical Blind Counts

A full inventory count is daunting, but a categorical count is reasonable- especially with the relief of it being a blind count. One team member can take on doing the day’s blind count. Inventory leadership can decide who does the count or what categories are counted. These should always line up as a category isn’t as much of an undertaking of the whole store. Compare the blind count to your tracking system and investigate early if there are any discrepancies. 

Regular, well in-tune blind counts keep inventory rooms clean and compliant. Potential discrepancies will be reconciled early and inventory counts will be smoother than ever. 

Get it in Writing

Communication breakdowns are among the most common at the heart of conflict. Have your shift leads across all days and shifts agree on a format that covers basic information: 

• Intake progress- what is received and what is live
• Security issues
• Team member callouts
• Upcoming events 

This can be an email chain that’s updated every shift in a month, a living word document, but ideally have it in some online format so the information is always backed up. Be sure to callout any specific events of note including blind count discrepancies, missed deliveries, and other events. Having a date and timestamp can be handy for other issues, like security matters that may need to be escalated. This thread can be between all relevant shift leads and the location’s management team for visibility. 

Sticker This- or Bookmark It

Alleaves is here to help you do everything better- yes, even your inventory. In addition to our team’s clear cannabis expertise, we’re backed with purpose-built compliance software. If you’d like to learn more about Alleaves and our dispensary solutions, click here.