Pros & Cons of Cova: Analysis of a Leading POS Software

Just recently, Canada and parts of the United States legalized the cannabis industry. Dispensaries then popped up one by one and rivaled each other all over the country. But still, it is one of the most highly regulated markets. The distribution rules vary not only by state but sometimes also by cities. Although the cannabis business is a dynamic, growing industry, laws about them are still in an ever-changing state.

Every cannabis store must always be mindful of rules and regulations. The littlest flaw when it comes to compliance reporting can jeopardize your certification and create damaging effects to your retail operations by a great deal. Fortunately, Cova’s POS software exists solely for this purpose.

The software aims to make it easy for both the budtenders and retail owners to monitor purchase limits and equivalences with each transaction. Known for their compliance-driven POS system, Cova proves that they understand the industry and the retailers’ needs and know it well enough like the back of their hands. But is it the right system for your dispensary?

In this article, we will take a look at the pros and cons of Cova, a retail POS software quickly gaining ground despite not being in the business for long. Furthermore, we will not only delve into the software’s good features but also point out the areas that need improvement, if there are any. By reading through the article, you’ll be able to assess if Cova is the right POS system for your cannabis retail.

POS Software Solutions in the Cannabis Industry

Choosing the right POS system for your business not only boosts profit margins but also attracts more customers. The best retail POS software must keep an eye on and manage inventory levels, perform online accounting tasks, and track customer purchasing habits. In the cannabis industry setting, with the market being so highly regulated, the technology that you choose for your cannabis retail business must support you in more ways than one. First, it has to be flexible enough to accommodate different management variables. At the same time, it must cover most of the required legal contingencies.

It’s no wonder why most dispensary owners in the cannabis scene change platforms from time to time. They have to look and actually keep looking out for functional software that can serve them for the years to come. Comparing POS software solutions can do wonders when choosing the most appropriate one for your business.

Now, with the growth in the cannabis industry also comes the increase in the number of POS software vendors to accommodate most of the retailers’ needs. In a research conducted by New Cannabis Ventures, there is a 58% increase in the number of cannabis POS vendors.

Although most of the traditional investments dos and don’ts are not applicable in this kind of business, the cannabis industry by 2024 is expected to be worth more than $40 billion. Thus, for dispensary owners, it’s absolutely worth the extra effort in finding the perfect POS software to power up your retail store. As advancement in technology continues to rapidly develop, you shouldn’t stop at one POS software. Instead, explore until you find the one that can fully cover all your store’s needs, from inventory tracking, reporting and documentation, and all through compliance help.

Will Cova fulfill those needs that your cannabis dispensary requires? To answer that, the next part of this article will discuss the features of the POS software. Read on, and it shall help learn about the pros and cons of Cova. This way, you can determine if Cova indeed is the right one for your cannabis dispensary.

What is Cova Software?

Cova is a POS software specifically developed for cannabis dispensaries to efficiently run their business. The software boasts of features including automating operations, tracking inventory, and presenting product information to the customers.

Cova is a part of a larger company. Its parent company, iQmetrix, has more than 20,000 stores. It also has more than 80% of the cellular dealer market in North America. Cova, meanwhile, has a dedicated team of more than 50 employees across North America from Denver to California, Michigan, Washington, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Vancouver, Toronto and Regina.

Should you want to investigate the platform firsthand, you can easily do so when you sign up for Cova free demo here.

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Cova’s POS software offers solutions covering the growth and distribution aspects of their clients. The software’s system is not only designed to be engaging for the customers. It also provides educational tools for an amateur shopper or a more experienced buyer. Cova prides in providing a great customer experience by being more than just a simple cash register. Through the POS software’s features like purchase order creation, it is intended as a functional tool for the store owners and budtenders. The software ensures that the dispensary runs smoothly on a day-to-day basis.

The reliability and user-friendliness of POS software can be beneficial for any type of business to run its daily operations. Cova, with its hard data and metrics and an easy-to-use platform, do just that and more. The software will provide you and your staff the appropriate tools you’ll need to allow your customers to have a worthwhile transaction experience.

Cova Advantages & Disadvantages

Compliance reporting

Business in the cannabis industry can be tricky, especially with the strict requirements surrounding its legalization. One single misstep in the operations could jeopardize your retail license, and Cova knows this. Thus, Cova designed a dispensary POS software that ensures compliance.

Cova comes equipped with an age verification scanner. It scans the IDs of your customers who come into your shop to register and check in. This way, you can prevent underage sales and verify information through the use if ID barcode scanners. This feature also allows searching auto-complete functions, as well as auto-apply taxes and discounts depending on your customer’s membership level.

More on the compliance tools, Cova’s POS can help your staff prevent accidentally breaking the rules that they can easily overlook, such as the customer’s purchase limits. With the purchase limits alert feature, Cova’s POS will automatically calculate product equivalencies. This feature also alerts your staff if a customer has exceeded their limits in purchasing.

Additionally, Cova comes with a feature that ensures that your retail follows only the authorized hours for operations. This prevents the risk of a costly fine or license withdrawal.

You can easily create and manage customer profiles.

Retail-specific features

Cova has a strong focus on the retail side of the cannabis business. By doing so, they ensure the pro qualities of a retail management software solution. This strategy has also brought the team success. They now have contracts with over 600 stores in Colorado, California, Oklahoma, Michigan, Illinois, Montana, Alaska, Missouri and Nevada, British Columbia, Washington, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta.

The features of the software are specifically designed to ease the management of your retail business. The mobile dashboard, for example, can be customized to fit your needs. This way, you can always keep an eye on your operations.

Cova has a user-friendly interface.

Inventory management

Another important feature that you should look for in a POS software is its ability to track and manage inventory. Cova does this easily. It tracks inventory either by product type or by the individual batch, starting from the time the product enters the operation until it’s finally sold to a customer.

With its outstanding capability to transfer inventory between stores while managing orders for any retailer to offer delivery as well, Cova’s POS inventory system saves you valuable time. This makes for a fairly simple yet accurate inventory management.

Customer management

Agile, easy to use, and brings delight to new and regular customers—can Cova do this? Well, the answer is yes, and it does more than that in terms of customer management. The queuing system is surely worth a mention. Upon deployment of the POS software, you won’t have to go through the hassle of taking numbers and managing long lines. By using the built-in queue feature, your customers can simply just sign in and stand by until the next sales staff is available.

The speedy transactions also gain favorable reviews from customers. Having an average transaction time of 1.4 seconds, your customers will get to have a seamless and speedy cannabis retail shopping experience.

It must also be noted that Cova software does not keep a record of customer data. Although he ID scanner reads relevant information from a customer’s ID, it doesn’t store any personal identifying information for the protection of your customers. For the purposes of loyalty programs, however, customers’ personal information will have their data securely stored in the Azure Canada-Central server. The consumer data is  protected by the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

You can utilize the queuing list to better manage your customers’ waiting time.

Touch-screen menu

Cova eliminates having to rely on a single terminal or an overstuffed binder just to access a customer’s order history and strain details. The software uses an express checkout kiosk, a cannabis touch-screen menu, and a digital signage. Having an intuitive cannabis retail technology drives customers to be more interactive with your store while at the same time makes your budtenders’ lives easier.

The digital and touchscreen solutions that Cova offers also work well in a seamless integration. You’ll have your pricing, content, and inventory in one place that you can easily navigate through. It also includes a built-in analytics and dashboard reporting.

Moreover, Cova utilizes a tablet to take advantage of its built-in features. Instead of purchasing a standalone scanner, you’ll be using the tablet’s camera for scanning. A tablet also allows your staff to process checkouts from anywhere in the store instead of being solely restricted behind the counter.

Offline mode feature

Let’s face it—for online systems, you’ll always be facing the risk of having downtimes or Internet connectivity issues. Power outage can even become an issue. In situations like these, there’s a lot to be concerned about. How do you accurately record seed-to-sale traceability data? How do you ensure your customers don’t purchase more than the daily limit allowed? This leads to violations of compliance rules, which in turn can threaten your business operations.

With the offline mode feature of Cova’s POS software, though, there’s nothing to worry about. The software will keep your lines moving even without Wi-Fi and will allow your transactions to proceed even without an Internet connection. Once a connection is securely established again, the transaction data will simply sync into the system.

Seamless traceability transactions

Being a seed-to-sale compliant POS, Cova fully integrates with statewide traceability systems such as Leaf Data Systems, Metrc, and BioTrackTHC. Cova’s developers are METRC experts and are thus knowledgeable with the processes and workflows necessary for integrating with state systems. Currently, Cova is certified by and integrated with Metrc in Michigan, Colorado, and California. It will also soon be integrated with Metrc in Missouri.

Easy onboarding

Another pro for Cova is that it is one of the easiest retail cannabis POS platforms to use. Integration of a new software system and training of your budtenders comes easy in just a three-step process: an onboarding call that outlines exactly the information Cova will need from you, a follow-up call that ensures they understand the information you sent, and an in-person training where Cova’s team will join you in launching the software.

It takes between two to four weeks to complete the onboarding process. Cova first extracts data from your current system by the use of their internal exporting tools. You can rest assured that all your retail’s data, such as inventory, product information, and customer and loyalty info, are handled safely  and imported the night before the changeover.  The hardware normally take the longest time to order.

There is no free trial of the software, though, but Cova offers a free demo on their website.

A POS Software Covering Your Cannabis Dispensary Needs

A POS software in the cannabis industry must have the perfect approach in having a compliant-driven system. It must also have all the functionalities a POS software must have—from inventory reporting up to providing detailed sales reports. Cova covers these requirements well. Furthermore, what sets them apart among others is how their POS does not only reduce human errors but also streamlines the learning curve with an interactive, intuitive, and user-friendly interface.

Operating in a market that’s only been recently legitimized, Cova understandably wants to focus first on the retail side of the cannabis industry. It integrates tightly with Leafly and Weedmaps though it does not offer full functionalities to manage grow facilities—understandable for a vendor that focuses on the retail experience side.

The open APIs of course easily address this, allowing users to integrate with grow software as they see fit. With the open APIs, they should have no trouble integrating any grow software of their choice with Cova to track the inventory from end to end.

Additionally, Cova does not operate yet outside of California, Colorado, Washington, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Alaska, Illinois, Montana, Missouri and Nevada. It is working to address that, however, so watch this corner to get the latest update on this. Cova has enough workflows and internal tools in place that can keep your online menus up-to-date.

Overall, Cova has brought into the table an impressive number of incredible and practical features for your retail store. It creates a unique store flow of your cannabis dispensary. At the same time, the POS software allows your customers a worthwhile cannabis shopping experience.

An appealing test drive of all software features is available to you when you sign up for Cova free demo here.

By Shaun Baker

With 5 years of experience in digital marketing and retail strategy under his belt, Shaun Baker is the resident eCommerce expert at FinancesOnline. A contributor to Entrepreneur, The Atlantic, and other business portals, he has spoken and written about various eCommerce subjects, from AI and headless commerce to the economics of Black Mirror’s “Fifteen Million Credits”. His (highly) opinionated pieces on the ebbs and flows of eCommerce as an industry remain both a dynamic resource of talking points and entertainment in itself.