On December 19, 2024, Dutchie's Director of Compliance, Francine Muhammad, hosted a webinar providing an overview of the Dutchie and BioTrack integration for dispensaries in New York State. It explained what the BioTrack inventory tracking system is and how to start preparing for the integration. The webinar highlighted changes dispensary owners can expect, such as new inventory and delivery workflows, and emphasized the importance of accurate data and proper employee training. After reading, be sure to engage with future training materials, utilize current available resources, and prepare to streamline your inventory management.
*Dutchie's next webinar on BioTrack integration for New York dispensaries will be available on January 30, 2024. If you have any questions, please email ny-integrations-help@dutchie.com.
Hey, New York. My name is Francine Muhammad. I'm the director of compliance at Dutchie, and I was born and raised in Staten Island, New York, so even though I live in Detroit now, I'm a New Yorker at heart, and I'm really excited to be giving you an overview of the Dutchie New York BioTrack integration.
This is a high-level introduction that is primarily aimed at dispensaries, particularly those of you who may be new to the state traceability. If you're familiar with BioTrack, Metrc, or another traceability system, or if you've operated in another state, the information I'm presenting today might be familiar to you already.
Future webinars and training materials will take a much deeper dive into the BioTrack integration, including cultivation and processing workflows. But for today, we'll be focusing on an introduction to BioTrack with a focus on the dispensary environment. What do we know so far?
The BioTrack New York API is now available. OCM is requiring that all licenses confirm by January 17 that they are using a point of sale system capable of integrating with BioTrack.
The good news is that since you are using Dutchie, you have already chosen a vendor that can integrate with BioTrack. Be sure to visit the OCM sale integration website and fill out the report STS vendor information survey. There's been a little confusion, and I want to make clear that January 17 is not the integration deadline. It is simply the deadline for licenses to inform OCM that they have a point of sale system capable of integrating with BioTrack.
OCM has not released an integration timeline yet. We expect to hear more information from them in the coming weeks or months. The good news is that the New York API is very similar to the Florida BioTrack API, and Dutchie has onboarded a number of customers in Florida, so all of our critical workflows are already built, and we expect the remaining work to be completed by the end of February. However, Dutchie will be able to accommodate any reasonable implementation date requested by OCM.
So, let's begin. What is BioTrack, the seed-to-sale system? OCM is using the BioTrack seed-to-sale system, also known as a traceability system, to track cannabis from seed or clone to harvest, distribution to the final sale to a consumer. Each seed, clone, plant, intermediary product, and final product will be assigned a unique number. OCM can use this number to trace the final product back to all its associated activity. Some examples of activity tracked are plant growth changes, plant movements, packaging adjustments, repackaging, lab testing results, transfers, sales, returns, and quantity adjustments.
Here's a simple graphic that shows the cannabis lifecycle as it moves through a traceability system. A seed is planted, or maybe a clone is brought in. Once the plant reaches a certain size, it will be tagged with a BioTrack serial number. This serial number will follow the plant as it's harvested, as it goes through intermediary stages like being turned into extract or distillate, and in this case, turned into an edible. The edible is purchased by a dispensary. The edible is tagged with a serial number at the dispensary location, and the edible is sold to a consumer. OCM will be able to see each of these steps and many steps in between, and everything can be traced back to the unique BioTrack serial number.
How is BioTrack different from a point of sale system? After the integration is live, you'll continue to use Dutchie for all your store activities like you do today, like receiving inventory, checking in customers, making inventory adjustments, and making sales and returns. Once the BioTrack integration is live, these actions that you're making in Dutchie will be posted to BioTrack. OCM will be able to monitor all activity in BioTrack as your Dutchie system posts information to it. Corrective actions you make in Dutchie, like voiding a sale you didn't mean to make or adjusting the quantity of a product to its correct amount, will also reflect in BioTrack.
It's important to note that licensees will not have access to the BioTrack system other than for very limited uses. This means that licensees will not be able to log into BioTrack directly and confirm that the information has been transmitted accurately. Dispensaries will be relying on their point of sale system to accurately communicate all information to BioTrack.
How does the BioTrack seed-to-sale system work with Dutchie? BioTrack and Dutchie operate using a two-way integration. This means that the two systems are communicating information back and forth.
Let's walk through a simple example on the graphic that illustrates how the two systems will communicate. You are a dispensary, and you order some new products. The transport comes and delivers the products you ordered. You receive the product into Dutchie, and it is now available for sale to your customers. Once you receive the product into Dutchie, a corresponding action is reported to BioTrack. And BioTrack will now show that the product you just received into your store has been transferred from the distributor's license to your dispensary license. OCM would also be able to see that the product has transferred locations when they look at BioTrack. A customer walks in, and you make a sale through Dutchie. That sale is posted to BioTrack. Once the sale is made, the product's quantity is updated in Dutchie, and moments later, that product's quantity is also updated in BioTrack. OCM can't see your Dutchie system, but they can see the sale, the product that was sold, the date and time it was sold, and other relevant details because Dutchie will post this information to the BioTrack system.
Let's walk through another example: a return. A customer comes in and returns some product. You process the return through Dutchie. After the return is processed, the product's quantities are updated in your Dutchie system. And moments later, Dutchie posts the return information to BioTrack. OCM would be able to see the date and time of the return, the product returned, as well as some other relevant information that is transmitted to BioTrack from your Dutchie system.
What changes to dispensary operations can be expected after the integration is live? After BioTrack is live, there will be some changes to your in-store workflows, but not everything will change. At the registering, making sales and returns will basically stay the same. It's important to know here that because BioTrack and Dutchie are constantly communicating, BioTrack errors can cause interruptions in your sales. For example, let's say, for some reason, there's a discrepancy between your Dutchie system and the BioTrack system, and a particular pre-roll is showing a quantity of two in your Dutchie system, but in BioTrack, it's showing a zero quantity. When you attempt to make that sale, BioTrack will tell Dutchie that there is zero quantity, and it will prevent the sale from being made. We will go into more detail about how these discrepancies can happen and what you should do to avoid them in future webinars.
What are some workflows that will change after BioTrack is live? This is not an exhaustive list, but some examples are receiving inventory. After receiving inventory into Dutchie, you will have to classify all products by product category and assign products to a room location. There will also be changes to delivery workflows after BioTrack is live. BioTrack has a very particular delivery workflow, so there will be changes to the buttons that have to be clicked and the steps that have to be taken in Dutchie to complete a delivery. We will dedicate an entire webinar to delivery. Invoicing: OCM is requiring that invoice payments and invoice rejections are tracked in BioTrack. There will be new workflows that allow invoices to be created and for invoices to be marked as paid or rejected in BioTrack. We will also cover this invoicing workflow in detail at a future date.
As you can tell, some dispensary employees will experience changes in their workflows, and others won't. For example, budtenders that don't handle inventory and only attend to customers likely won't experience changes. But inventory managers, store managers, and delivery employees will have new workflows that they need to learn. If you are a dispensary owner, I strongly encourage you to have employees who handle or manage inventory, delivery employees, and managers pay very close attention to all our training because their day-to-day will change the most.
BioTrack will become OCM's source of truth. What does this mean? This means that when it comes to monitoring license activity and compliance, OCM will rely on the information contained in BioTrack. Today, if you're a dispensary, you export inventory reports out of Dutchie and submit them to OCM so they can track sales and delivery. But after the integration is live, you'll no longer need to submit reports. So, if for some reason BioTrack has different information from what you have in Dutchie, OCM will only look to the information in BioTrack; hence, why I call BioTrack OCM's source of truth. This is why it's very important for the two systems to be communicating properly. This might sound a little intimidating, but we have integrated with BioTrack in nearly every single BioTrack state, and we are prepared to support you every step of the way. The only thing we ask is that you and your employees pay close attention to our webinars and our step-by-step instructions, stay engaged, and ask questions.
What can you do now to prepare? The best thing you can do right now is to perfect your internal store procedures and ensure that all your employees are on the same page, following the same procedures from the same SOPs. Some important store procedures you want to make sure employees are comfortable with are inventory management procedures like conducting regular inventory audits, how to properly process returns or voids, and ensuring that you have strong SOPs for making delivery sales. As you may be able to tell, inventory management is the number one thing to get right with the BioTrack integration since the two systems are constantly communicating. In the next few weeks, we'll be releasing a best practices guide for inventory audits and inventory management. If you want some additional resources, you can visit our Garden of Resources, where we have a wealth of information. Our Garden of Resources also has role-specific information, like general manager tracks and inventory coordinator tracks.
As we release more webinars and training material, the most impactful thing you can do is be active and engaged in all our training and make sure your employees are taking our training seriously. Watch our webinars and read our documentation closely. As I mentioned, the employees who need to pay the closest attention are those who handle inventory, manage the store, and make deliveries.
We're nearing the end of our intro webinar now. If you're feeling overwhelmed, rest assured, we'll be revisiting the concepts we introduced today in future webinars. And I want to emphasize that Dutchie is here for you. We have many teams dedicated to supporting our New York customers, including support, implementation, a dedicated compliance team, product, engineering, enablement, and customer success teams. Personally, I can tell you that supporting our New York customers is my number one priority until our last customer is successfully integrated.
After this webinar is over, we will release a New York Help Center page, which will become a repository for all our training materials, including this webinar. This page will eventually also have detailed step-by-step instructions and room recordings. Please also stay tuned for more information regarding our in-person training throughout New York State. We'll always send new training information via email to the point of contact we have on file, and we will send a Pendo that pops up when employees log in to Dutchie. Of course, you're always welcome to visit that New York Help Center page to see everything there.
Our next webinar will be in January, where we will dive a little deeper and cover some of the following topics: What is traceability, and what does traceability mean for you? Key definitions and terms, BioTrack tag control and purchasing, dispensary roles impacted, and role-specific responsibilities.
If you have any questions, please email ny-integrations-help@dutchie.com. These emails come to me personally, as well as the other members of our team. Even if you don't receive a response directly right away, rest assured we are reading each question, and we will be sure to answer your questions or concerns in future webinars or training materials. It's also really helpful for us to see what questions our customers have so we can make sure to tailor our training accordingly.
I hope this has been a helpful introduction to the BioTrack integration. I'm looking forward to our next webinar, and I hope everyone has a very happy holiday and new year.
