Member Blog: What Every Cannabis Company Needs to Know About Their Finance Function

By Maureen Ryan, RoseRyan

The finance function is an essential piece of a cannabis company’s ability to succeed. All too often overlooked by younger companies, it’s what’s needed to get a business through the survival stage and can really hold a company back if it’s not set up correctly. It gets leaders to spend wisely—and conserve cash when necessary. And it also helps companies scale for growth while being competitive in an increasingly crowded field.

Every finance function looks different, depending on where the company is in its business lifecycle. As they start out, companies may not yet have a full-time CFO and may rely on an outsourced team to access high-level expertise. As the company grows, so does the finance function itself and the areas it needs to cover and manage.

Everything gets more complicated with growth—from managing cash flow, meeting compliance demands, and navigating growth while planning for the future. To get through the ups and downs, cannabis companies should have access to the right mix of expertise, specialized skills, strategic insights, and wisdom of what fast-moving companies like theirs need in a dynamic marketplace.

I recently covered this topic on our firm’s blog, to help rising cannabis companies think through the essentials for developing a solid finance function. These include evaluating the expertise you have in-house, setting up the company for a potential acquisition (even it doesn’t seem likely right now, anything is possible!), and creating an ecosystem of trusted partners.   

When things are moving fast, there’s a pressing need to prepare for opportunities and to be ready to switch gears if necessary. A fine-tuned finance function makes it all possible.

Maureen Ryan, vice president, heads up business development at finance and accounting consulting firm RoseRyan and was just featured in this month’s NCIA member spotlight. An NCIA member since 2016, RoseRyan is celebrating its 25th anniversary of great finance for companies of all sizes and kinds. Maureen can be reached at mryan@roseryan.com.