If I may add to Employee Theft and “step 3” of Data Breaches: – 90% is employee theft in more conventional retail operations. I feel it’s higher in cannabis businesses, as I haven’t heard of a single customer who has checked-in with their photo ID flip the script and rob the place. I have, however, heard of 40, 50, 100 lbs of flower disappearing. Who was responsible? Lower-level management and employees, with poor decision-making. – Limit cash drawer limits, and have secondary witness (manager, security) supervise cash counts, refills, and drops to a designated safe for that manager. Maintain paper, wet-ink, logs of these activities, in addition to any electronic reporting. – As a former vault custodian at WAMU eons ago – Ensure you have safes that only your security company can open. There are plenty of vendors out there. If not feasible, have multiple safes that only high-level mangers have access to, in a secured room. Next – as mentioned briefly above, assign specific safes to each of the managers on duty for cash drops and drawer refills, but don’t share safes – just as it’s best not to share cash drawers. – Regarding receiving inventory, I’ve found matching a purchase order to the METRC manifest is an initial step, but, taking the few extra minutes to physically count the units one is taking receipt of can maintain solid inventory-control procedures. Restricting this duty to management is vital, and just like cash drawer drops, requires a second person there to witness the activity, optimally a physical hand-written log as well. Deterring Robbery and Vandalism – My recommendations are to always have at least 2 security guards on site during business hours, and a 24-hr security monitoring and response company on contract as well. – 1 guard Never leaves the lobby, the other can be on roving patrols, presence patrols, and assisting cash or inventory activity as supervision in addition to security. – Cyclically, optimally hourly or more frequently, a security guard needs to conduct a “presence patrol,” of the permiter of the property, and parking lot. This is not only to see and be seen, but to re-assure the customers they are patrons of a quality store. – Establish with your terms of service with the security guard / private patrol operator that their guards are not to over-associate or in other words “make friends,” with overly friendly patrons. This is an established form of casing a retail establishment, by befriending security and/or engaging them in cooperation. Intra-company cohesion and friendliness, cooperation and a positive work environment is not the topic, it’s keeping “scouts” from gleaning actionable information from The Person who’s area of purview is to dissuade and prevent crime – spotting scouts is one method. – Conduct inventory control protocols such as bi-weekly or monthly full-store physical inventory counts. In the interim between full physical inventory counts, conduct cycle counts by filter – let’s say by vendor/brand, as one, and my preferred is by item category. Cycle count all vapes Monday, all topicals Tuesday, pre-rolls Wednesday, and so on. The alternative of brand is suggested as some Point-of-sale software providers do provide great reports, and ad hoc reporting modules – whereas some are light, and need some development. Regardless, cycle counts every day and full-physical inventory counts every 2 or 4 weeks will yield tight inventory control, satisfying owners that all is well, and in the event of a pop-up inspection or audit, records are “audit-ready.” I hope this helps expand a bit; keep up the good work!! Reply