Before opening a cannabis dispensary, Mary Ann, the COO of Riverside Wellness, had planned to attend law school and work in social justice; but the market crash in 2008 caused her to rethink the expenses associated with law school, and led her to shift her focus towards public health, an area that had always called to her.
After exploring the cannabis industry Mary Ann and her husband fell in love with public health testing surrounding the recreational cannabis market, so the pair decided to partner with a group to open a cannabis business where they could serve the best cannabis at the best price, and provide educational and medicinal resources to the public.
Taking on the responsibility of owning and operating her own cannabis business for the first time was an arduous task that pushed Mary Ann to seek out resources that could help manage the operations and payroll the easy way, so she could invest more time into improving their business.
It didn’t take Mary Ann long to realize that using the KayaPush software in this way was saving her money, and most importantly, time. As a bonus, Mary Ann quickly saw that utilizing KayaPush in the business helped improve the relationship with their staff.
Scheduling and payroll would have been monumental tasks for Mary Ann without using KayaPush.
In other business roles she had worked in they manually ran both business functions, using excel spreadsheets for scheduling and an individual accountant for payroll. While it got the job done, it was by no means an effective use of resources.
Managing weekly schedules and time-off requests became a struggle in previous businesses, which did not have a clear way of keeping it all organized.
Additionally, since the payroll was handled by an outside accountant, there was a lack of transparency regarding the business needs, scheduling, and payroll.
With KayaPush, Mary Ann now can easily view and approve any time-off requests and scheduling needs in one place. Even better for her staff, they can go directly through KayaPush to submit any of these requests without having to track down Mary Ann.
Mary Ann no longer dreads running payroll because now it only takes her a matter of minutes. All in all, her time spent on KayaPush in one week is just a fraction of the amount of time spent on scheduling and payroll in businesses in the past.
This gives herself, and her staff more time to share the latest science-based product information with clients, so they can spend their time listening and responding with empathy and education.
For Mary Ann, the best part of the platform is knowing that she is always supported. Not only did the KayaPush team help walk her through her first payroll process step-by-step, but Mary Ann knows that if she ever has any questions, she can turn to customer support and get answers fast.
Mary Ann loves KayaPush because it enables her to focus her time and attention on developing her staff and her business as a whole.
She’s been able to save over 15 hours per month and invest that back into the business in the form of employee training and development.
Having this extra time has allowed Mary Anne to focus on important initiatives, like sourcing the safest, cleanest and most effective forms of medical marijuana while providing patients with clear, science-based information.
Mary Ann is also passionate about guiding clients on a journey by providing educational resources, and community-based discounts through the dispensary’s unique Compassionate Care Discount Program.
When asked if she would recommend KayaPush, Mary Ann responded that she definitely believes that people in the cannabis industry should seek out KayaPush integration.
“KayaPush has it all in one platform where you can kind of build what you need. Especially as a start-up, that’s important to us to be cost-friendly. You have the best price for what you’re offering. ”
-Marry Ann from Riverside Wellness-