RIVERSIDE WELLNESS, 1 STORE IN THE MIDWEST UNITED STATES
Meet Mary Ann, owner and COO of Riverside Wellness.
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.
A new venture.
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.
Life before using the KayaPush system.
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.
Taking care of business.
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.
It’s the things you can’t measure.
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.
Crushing business goals.
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.
Would you recommend KayaPush?
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.
The End Result
Challenges:
- Time-consuming weekly scheduling.
- Difficult for employees to request time off.
- Paying a full-time accountant to run payroll.
- Less focus on business improvements.
- Time away from staff.
Solutions:
- Schedules can be copy/pasted each week to save time.
- Employees can submit and track time-off requests remotely.
- Running payroll with two button clicks.
- Less time in the office means more time with employees.
- User-friendly platform makes processes quick and easy.
Results:
- Saving 200 hours per year on scheduling and payroll processes.
- Saving 100 hours on a full-time accountant.
- Schedules are easy to see and navigate through different weeks or months.
- Payroll now takes a matter of 10 minutes.
- More staff training yields higher engagement and retention.
