How should a cannabis business manage invoices and bill pay?

Five activities. We record every invoice in your books as it arrives, route it for approval under your approval policy, review open accounts payable with management one to two times a week, and prepare ACH payments in your banking system. Your authorized signers give final approval and release each payment.

Because keeping invoices paid on time takes more attention than most cannabis teams, especially dispensaries, can spare. Cannabis operators also deal with vendors other retailers rarely see, such as compliance software providers, security firms and packaging suppliers subject to state labeling rules. Each of those invoices has to be documented and coded correctly for 280E and state reporting.

It follows your policy. Some clients use one approver for everything, others route larger invoices to executives and smaller ones to operations managers, and others route by vendor category. We set up the routing you choose and never decide on your behalf what gets paid.

At entry, with vendor, amount, due date and the expense or inventory account captured. In cannabis that coding decision matters more than in most industries, because where 280E applies an invoice for packaging that goes into Cost of Goods Sold is treated differently from one for office supplies. Getting it right at entry avoids recoding at year end.

The Bill Pay service covers accounts payable. Customer invoicing, receivables tracking and collections are scoped separately because the cadence and risks are different. Dispensaries that collect at the point of sale carry little receivable, while wholesalers, cultivators and processors selling to other licensees often need active receivables management.

One to two times a week. Each review is a short, structured look at what is open, what is coming due, what needs approval and what your cash position supports this week. Missing a payment to a security provider, compliance vendor or key supplier has operational consequences beyond a late fee, so we keep that visibility constant.

By separating duties. We record invoices and prepare payments, your management approves them, and your bank executes the transfer after your signers release it. Because no single person records, approves and releases a payment, an erroneous or fraudulent transaction has no unchecked path through the process.

We capture the invoice, document the cash payment with a receipt, and record it at the same level of detail as an electronic payment. That keeps cash disbursements visible in your controls and correctly coded for 280E and state reporting. Federal banking limits mean many cannabis operators still pay some vendors in cash, so this is a standard part of the process.

Yes. Bill pay is the natural place to collect what 1099 filing needs: vendor type, entity structure, a Form W-9 on file and cumulative payments by vendor. When bill pay and bookkeeping run in the same place, the data is consistent all year and year-end 1099 preparation is straightforward. Filing dates are on our 2027 tax deadlines page.

It turns payables into a cash planning tool. The weekly review lets you sequence payments deliberately, putting critical vendors first, instead of paying whoever calls first. With high tax and operating costs in cannabis, that weekly discipline is part of keeping enough cash for tax payments and inventory.

No. We work inside your existing banking system. Most licensed operators worked hard to establish a relationship with a bank or credit union that accepts cannabis deposits, so we prepare payments there and your signers release them there.

Yes. Many cannabis operators run separate entities for cultivation, processing, retail and real estate, each with its own bank accounts and vendors. We handle each entity's payables in its own books and banking environment under one engagement, with the same process, controls and reporting across all of them.

We record invoices as they arrive, so each one enters your approval workflow right away. Once approved, the ACH is prepared and held for your release. The main variable is your own approval time, which is by design: you make every payment decision.

We flag it instead of processing it. Duplicate bills, pricing errors and invoices that do not match agreed terms are raised at the next payables review, and you decide how to handle the vendor. Many cannabis vendor relationships are long-running and important, so you stay in charge of those conversations.

We scope it on your invoice volume, the number of entities and bank accounts, the complexity of your approval workflow, and whether it runs on its own or alongside our bookkeeping. When you compare costs, include the time your team spends managing payables today.

We start with a discovery call covering invoice volume, vendors, accounting software, banking platform and current approval workflow. Then we document your approval policy, set up access at the right permission levels and start the weekly review. During handover we review vendor records, confirm payment terms and align expense coding with 280E.