Metrc Package Reports are here

You’ve heard about them for months. Metrc package reports.

Perhaps our biggest feature add since the app was born has just gone into production. Rick and I have had the vision for this feature tumbling in our heads for months, so it’s easy to forget there’s a lot about these reports that need explanation. Like what they are, what they do, and most importantly, how they’re supposed to benefit clients?

So to give everyone a better idea of how it works and what these reports bring to the table, here’s a crash course.

Wait, what was the big idea?

There are two reports: Negative Packages and Old Packages. These reports run by location, and the idea behind them is to help businesses track down inventory problems. This is something we’ve heard time and time again can become messy quickly.

Old and Negative Package Reports are the first two members of our new Analytics Module (marketed as a $30/month add-on). There’ll be more to come in this bundle, but we’re still determining what those will be.

A negative package is a MED violation, which hopefully makes the what and why of the Negative Packages report somewhat obvious. Among other things, a package containing a negative amount (be it grams or ounces) is a direct result of a point-of-sale (POS) error. If you’re curious, the presence of negative packages puts businesses in violation of both R 309(E)(1) and M 309(F)(1), the regulations requiring reconciliation of all inventory at the end of each day. In Emily’s words: “a negative package is a violation because if you have one then you obviously haven’t reconciled.”

While it’s not a violation (per se), the same reasoning goes for an Old Package. Without going into detail about what constitutes an old package (more on that later), having a package with a packaged date in the distant past can reflect POS problems. Considering MED investigators often check Metrc accounts when deciding whether to audit a business, not only are we helping prevent violations, we can also help keep them in keeping Metrc clean, and thus from being audited.

Kind of a big deal.

Here’s how Package Reports solve problems

In the short-term, they help to track recently negative (or old) packages.

And by short-term, we mean “in the last 24 hours.” Both of these reports run daily, and in doing so pinpoint packages that have crossed the threshold of negative (or old) since yesterday. So we’re giving users a small, fresh list of items every day. The prevailing thought is the more recent the mistake, the easier it is to track down.

Going one level deeper: If you can catch and fix these errors on a daily basis, you can prevent the number of these mistakes from growing.

In the long-term, these reports set a benchmark for improving SOP’s. To do that, we go back 365 days (or as far back as we have data for) to help users see trends in their old and negative packages.

The above chart plots the total number of negative packages on every day for the last year. If a company is putting the right measures in place,  this should go down over time.

Bonus: Every report with more than 0 negative or old packages (reports don’t show unless they have 1 or more for that day) comes with a CSV of all packages. So in addition to catching new instances, users can consistently work on old instances to keep lowering their total of old and negative packages.

Working with Metrc Packages Data

Remember how we are a validated Metrc Integrator? That allows us to pull packages data on behalf of our clients (or anyone who shares their Metrc API key).

In this case, we’re pulling all of a client’s package data at 1am every morning, regardless of time zone. We chose 1am because it’s low-traffic for our app, which will give us the computing power we need to run these reports.

So we pull every single “active” package they have in Metrc, and for each of those packages we check to see if 1) the quantity is negative and/or 2) the packaged date or last modified date meets our definition of “old.” The three criteria for which we consider a package old are:

• Its packaged date was more than 90 days ago AND it hasn’t been modified in 30 days
• Its packaged date was more than 180 days ago AND it hasn’t been modified in 60 days
• Its packaged date was more than one year ago

It’s worth noting that a package can meet all of the criteria for being old, or just some of them. By the same token, a package can be listed on the Negative Packages report and the Old Packages report at the same time.

That’s the latest, so whether you’re selling or just marveling at the wonders of Metrc, hope you’re feeling equipped.