For decades, many small businesses have turned to Quickbooks for basic accounting needs making it a household name for most entrepreneurs.
To this day, the software remains capable of handling broad accounting tasks for companies in their early years and through initial stages of growth. However, while QuickBooks may be adequate for an upstart traditional business, it struggles and ultimately fails to keep up with the demands of the cannabis industry.
Let’s take a quick look at some of the ways QuickBooks can’t cut it for cannabis:
QuickBooks Isn’t Made for Cannabis
As one of the most complex industries to operate in, working from a solution not explicitly designed for the compliance and accounting challenges of cannabis is no a solution at all.
True cannabis-specific accounting systems keep operators up to date on cannabis tax laws and other regulatory changes. Having the software know and track deduction categorizations can save a cannabusiness significant time and headache whereas QuickBooks shifts this burden onto the cannabusiness.
The QuickBooks Inventory System Is Inadequate
An essential part of any cannabis operation is staying on top of inventory and the system that tracks it. Cannabis companies are tasked with maintaining incredibly intricate inventory tracking that require systems connecting various components of a cannabusiness.
Accurate inventory data is a vital component of compliance in a marketplace where compliance is the most critical consideration. The inventory components of Quickbooks fall short of even the most basic cannabis inventory requirements forcing operators to use spreadsheets instead.
A Cannabis Company Needs Audit Trails
Audit trails are vital for the cannabis companies due to the aggressiveness with which the federal government has been regulating the industry. QuickBooks is known to struggle in maintaining compliant audit trails, making it a liability.
Cloud-based ERP systems, on the other hand, maintain unbroken audit trails to industry standards, so a cannabusiness never has to think about whether they’re prepared for an audit.
QuickBooks Is Limited to Accounting
Cannabis ERP accounting software offers much more than basic accounting functions that QuickBooks is limited to. Cannabis accounting data is critically linked to each component of a cannabusiness, so the accounting system should communicate with other systems to boost efficiency while presenting the big picture.
A Cannabis Company NeQuickBooks Feels Like Legacy Softwareeds Audit Trails
The jump to cloud computing and modern user interfaces has been difficult for many legacy software companies and QuickBooks feels like a relic of its time. There have been new features added to keep the software mostly up-to-date but feels like it’s been built on old approaches.
QuickBooks Is Hard to Use
QuickBooks is inherently clunkier compared to modern alternatives. Simple tasks can be a rabbit hole of menus and screens searching for and accessing specific files and information.
Operators in the cannabis industry simply require faster, more efficient software than QuickBooks.
Cannabis ERP
Remaining in compliance can be tough. Marijuana’s legal status varies on the federal and state levels making cannabis compliance exceptionally complicated and changing constantly.
As your cannabusiness begins to grow, patching together multiple technology solutions and manual spreadsheet workarounds begin to affect your ability to control the integrity of company data for reporting and compliance purposes.
c2b teknologies offers a better accounting solution than Quickbooks. Cannabis ERP (enterprise resource planning) gives you peace of mind knowing you’re on top of current regulations with automatic updates designed for the kind of micro-level tracking necessary to maintain compliance in the industry.
When you need a cannabis-specific financial management software that delivers automation and accounting controls to keep your cannabis operation audit-ready and positioned to scale, contact us.
