METRC is a regulatory track-and-trace system used by cannabis programs across the United States to follow regulated cannabis inventory through cultivation, harvest, processing, testing, transportation, and sale.
If you are entering the regulated cannabis industry, METRC can initially seem like a complicated collection of plants, tags, harvests, packages, transfers, weights, quantities, and reporting requirements.
The underlying concept is much simpler:
Regulated cannabis inventory should have a documented origin, a traceable history, a known location, and an accountable final disposition.
METRC provides regulators and licensed businesses with the electronic record used to maintain that traceability. But accurate compliance depends on much more than knowing how to use the software. The physical activity occurring inside the cannabis business must match the information being reported electronically.
This guide explains METRC from an operational perspective: what the system does, what it tracks, how cannabis inventory moves through it, and why good facility procedures are essential to maintaining accurate records.
Regulatory information reviewed: August 2026
What Does METRC Mean?
METRC is the cannabis track-and-trace platform developed by Metrc LLC. The system combines cloud-based software, uniquely identified plant and package tags, and a centralized regulatory database.
Depending on the jurisdiction and license type, licensed businesses use the system to report activities involving regulated cannabis plants and products.
Those activities can include:
- Creating immature plant batches
- Tracking individual cannabis plants
- Moving plants between locations or growth phases
- Recording plant waste
- Creating harvest batches
- Recording harvested material
- Creating packages
- Recording production and processing activity
- Submitting or transferring inventory for laboratory testing
- Transferring cannabis between licensed businesses
- Receiving regulated inventory
- Recording waste and destruction
- Recording sales or other final inventory dispositions when required
The exact terminology, deadlines, permissions, workflows, and reporting requirements can vary by state or jurisdiction.
How METRC Works
Think of METRC as a chain of connected inventory records.
A cannabis product should not simply appear inside regulated inventory without a traceable source. As cannabis moves through the licensed supply chain, new records are connected to the inventory from which they originated.
A simplified cultivation example might look like this:
Plant Source → Immature Plants → Individual Plants → Harvest → Package → Transfer → Processing or Retail → Final Sale
The actual workflow depends on the business, license type, jurisdiction, product, and applicable regulations. But the principle remains consistent: inventory activity creates a history that allows regulated cannabis to be traced through the supply chain.
Physical Inventory and Electronic Inventory Must Match
This is one of the most important concepts for anyone learning cannabis compliance.
METRC does not physically move a plant, weigh a harvest, count a package, load a delivery vehicle, or verify what is sitting on a shelf.
Employees perform those activities.
The electronic record depends on accurate information being collected from the physical operation and reported correctly.
That creates two connected inventories:
Physical Inventory
The plants, harvested material, packages, products, waste, and other regulated inventory actually present inside the licensed operation.
Electronic Inventory
The corresponding plants, harvests, packages, quantities, locations, transfers, and other activity recorded in METRC.
A strong compliance program continually verifies that those two versions of inventory agree.
METRC accuracy is ultimately an operational problem as much as it is a software problem.
Plant & Plant Batch Tracking
For cultivation businesses, seed-to-sale tracking begins early in the plant lifecycle.
Depending on the applicable jurisdiction and workflow, plants may begin as seeds, clones, cuttings, or other authorized plant material associated with an existing traceable source.
Immature plants can be managed in batches before reaching the point at which individual plant tracking is required. Once individually tracked, plants receive unique identifiers that remain associated with their records as they move through the cultivation process.
Common cultivation activities can include:
- Creating immature plant batches
- Recording plant sources
- Assigning individual plant identifiers
- Changing plant growth phases
- Moving plants between rooms or locations
- Recording plant destruction or waste
- Recording harvest activity
Plant Tags & Unique Identifiers
Unique identifiers create the connection between physical cannabis inventory and its electronic record.
Metrc uses serialized identifiers and RFID-enabled tags for regulated plant and package tracking. An identifier allows a particular plant or package to be distinguished from other inventory and associated with its history inside the system.
Good tag management requires more than ordering tags and entering numbers.
- Tags should be physically controlled.
- Identifiers should be assigned to the correct inventory.
- Employees should understand when tags are required.
- Physical tags and electronic records should be periodically audited.
- Missing, damaged, unused, or incorrectly assigned tags should be investigated according to applicable procedures.
Harvest Tracking
When tracked plants are harvested, their history does not disappear. The inventory transitions into a harvest record that connects the harvested material back to its plant source.
Harvest workflows may involve:
- Selecting the plants being harvested
- Creating the appropriate harvest batch
- Recording harvest dates
- Recording initial weights
- Documenting waste
- Tracking material during drying and post-harvest handling
- Creating packages from usable harvested material
- Finishing the harvest record after physical material has been appropriately accounted for
This is an area where strong physical procedures matter enormously. Harvest crews, drying teams, compliance staff, and managers need a shared process for weights, waste, material movement, package creation, and final reconciliation.
Packages
Packages are one of the central inventory concepts in seed-to-sale tracking.
A package represents a defined quantity of regulated cannabis inventory associated with a unique identifier. Packages can represent different forms of cannabis inventory depending on license type, jurisdiction, and stage of production.
Examples can include:
- Harvested flower
- Trim or other usable plant material
- Work-in-progress inventory
- Concentrates
- Manufactured cannabis products
- Laboratory samples
- Finished wholesale inventory
Packages allow the system to maintain traceability when inventory is divided, combined, processed, tested, transferred, or otherwise moved through the regulated supply chain.
Manufacturing & Production Tracking
Manufacturing introduces another layer of inventory complexity because source material can be transformed into entirely different products.
A manufacturing operation may need to connect:
- Source packages
- Production inputs
- Production batches or jobs
- Intermediate inventory
- Yields
- Production loss
- Waste
- Finished packages
- Testing status
This is why manufacturing reconciliation should look at both the METRC record and the actual production process. A discrepancy may originate from an incorrect source weight, an undocumented loss, a packaging difference, an incorrect unit of measure, or incomplete production information.
Testing & Laboratory Tracking
Regulated cannabis markets use laboratory testing to determine whether products meet applicable safety and quality requirements.
Seed-to-sale tracking can connect laboratory samples and test results with the inventory from which those samples originated. Depending on jurisdiction, inventory status and permitted activities may change while testing is pending or after a result is recorded.
Businesses should follow their state’s current testing rules and METRC procedures rather than assuming testing workflows are identical across jurisdictions.
Transfers & Manifests
When regulated cannabis inventory moves between licensed businesses, the electronic record must preserve chain of custody.
A transfer workflow can involve:
- The originating licensed facility
- The destination facility
- The packages being transferred
- Transport information
- Dates and times
- Vehicle and driver information where required
- Manifest information
- Receiving and acceptance
- Discrepancies, rejections, or returns
The receiving business should verify incoming physical inventory against the expected electronic transfer rather than assuming the shipment is correct simply because a manifest exists.
Waste & Destruction
Seed-to-sale tracking does not end only when cannabis is sold.
Plants, harvested material, production material, packages, samples, or products may leave active inventory through waste or destruction. Applicable rules may require specific documentation, methods, witnesses, timeframes, or other controls.
Operationally, employees should understand the difference between physical loss, ordinary production loss, plant waste, harvest waste, destruction, and an unexplained inventory discrepancy.
Those events should not automatically be treated as interchangeable reasons to make inventory numbers match.
METRC Is a Compliance System — Not Your Entire Business Management System
This distinction is important.
METRC provides the regulatory track-and-trace record required by participating jurisdictions. Cannabis businesses may also use point-of-sale systems, inventory software, cultivation management platforms, manufacturing records, accounting systems, spreadsheets, or other operational tools.
Those systems may contain information that METRC does not, and they may be designed for different business purposes.
The compliance challenge is making sure those systems do not develop conflicting versions of reality.
For example:
| Physical operation | What actually exists and what employees actually did |
| METRC | Regulatory track-and-trace record |
| POS / ERP / inventory software | Business inventory, sales, production, or operational records |
| Supporting documentation | Weights, production sheets, manifests, waste records, logs, counts, and other evidence |
A good reconciliation process compares these records instead of assuming any single system is automatically correct.
Why METRC Problems Are Often Operational Problems
Consider a simple example.
A harvest employee weighs material incorrectly. The incorrect weight is given to the compliance employee. The compliance employee accurately enters that incorrect information into METRC.
The software entry itself was performed correctly.
The inventory is still wrong.
Similar problems can originate from:
- Plants moved without notifying compliance staff
- Incorrect weights
- Unreported waste
- Incorrect package selections
- Production information reported late
- Transfers received without physical verification
- Employees using inconsistent units of measure
- Departments maintaining separate spreadsheets
- Incorrect user permissions
- Old SOPs that no longer match the operation
Correcting the METRC entry fixes the record. Correcting the workflow helps prevent the problem from happening again.
Common METRC Mistakes
Specific mistakes vary by license type and jurisdiction, but many compliance problems share similar operational causes.
- Waiting too long to report physical activity
- Entering information without verifying the source
- Making inventory adjustments before investigating discrepancies
- Using the wrong plant, harvest, or package record
- Leaving inactive inventory open unnecessarily
- Failing to reconcile physical and electronic inventory regularly
- Sharing user accounts or failing to manage permissions appropriately
- Using undocumented workarounds instead of standardized procedures
- Training employees only on software clicks rather than the underlying workflow
- Assuming a correction eliminates the need to understand why the error occurred
What Should Be Reviewed Daily?
The exact review depends on the license type and state, but a strong compliance program should establish a routine for reviewing recent inventory activity.
- Plant activity
- Harvest activity
- Packages created or changed
- Production activity
- Transfers sent and received
- Waste and destruction
- Testing-status changes
- Unexpected or incomplete records
- Employee-reported discrepancies
The objective is not to wait until a monthly inventory count reveals a problem that occurred three weeks earlier.
METRC Training
Metrc provides official training through Metrc Learn and state-specific training resources. Licensed businesses should complete any training required by their jurisdiction and use official materials for current software procedures.
Operational training should go a step further.
An employee should understand not only how to record an activity, but:
- Why the activity is being recorded
- Where the information came from
- What physical inventory the record represents
- What should be verified before submitting it
- What downstream inventory will be affected
- When a discrepancy should be escalated instead of corrected immediately
This distinction will form the foundation of the Secund Look METRC Training Center and future interactive track-and-trace practice exercises.
METRC Requirements Vary by State
METRC provides the technology, but participating regulators establish the rules governing their cannabis programs.
That means businesses should not assume that a workflow learned in one state automatically satisfies another state’s requirements.
Differences can involve:
- Reporting deadlines
- Plant-tracking requirements
- Testing procedures
- Package requirements
- Manufacturing workflows
- Transport procedures
- Waste requirements
- User permissions
- Required training
- Record-retention requirements
Explore State-Specific Support
- New York METRC Consulting
- Minnesota METRC Consulting
- Oklahoma METRC Consulting
- Ohio METRC Consulting
- Maryland METRC Consulting
- Missouri METRC Consulting
- Virginia METRC Consulting
METRC Frequently Asked Questions
What is METRC used for?
METRC is used as a regulatory track-and-trace system for cannabis. Depending on the jurisdiction and license type, it can track plants, harvests, packages, processing, testing, transfers, inventory activity, and sales or other final dispositions.
Does METRC track individual cannabis plants?
Yes. Cultivation workflows can include individually identified cannabis plants using unique plant identifiers. Immature plants may be managed differently before reaching the stage at which individual tracking is required, depending on the jurisdiction.
What is a METRC package?
A package represents a defined quantity of regulated cannabis inventory associated with a unique identifier. Packages allow inventory to remain traceable as it is processed, divided, tested, transferred, received, or moved through the regulated supply chain.
Is METRC an inventory management system?
METRC is primarily a regulatory compliance and track-and-trace platform. Businesses may use additional inventory, cultivation, manufacturing, point-of-sale, accounting, or ERP systems for broader operational management.
What happens if physical inventory does not match METRC?
The discrepancy should be investigated according to the business’s procedures and applicable state requirements. Physical counts, package histories, plant records, production information, transfers, sales, waste records, and supporting documentation may help identify the cause. An unexplained difference should not automatically be treated as a reason to make an unsupported adjustment.
Is METRC the same in every state?
No. The underlying platform supports seed-to-sale tracking, but participating jurisdictions establish their own cannabis regulations and can have different workflows, terminology, deadlines, permissions, reporting requirements, and implementation rules.
Where can I learn how to use METRC?
Metrc provides official education through Metrc Learn, state partner pages, support resources, bulletins, and documentation. Operators should also understand the facility procedures and state regulations that determine what information must be reported.
Can Secund Look provide METRC training?
Secund Look provides practical cannabis operations and compliance support and is developing structured training focused on understanding seed-to-sale workflows, inventory reconciliation, cultivation, manufacturing, transfers, and the relationship between physical operations and electronic records. Official Metrc or state-required training should still be completed when applicable.
Official METRC Resources
- Metrc — What Is Metrc?
- Metrc Track-and-Trace Technology
- Metrc Plant & Package Tracking
- Metrc Support & Training
- Metrc State & Regional Partners
Always use current regulator guidance, applicable laws and regulations, official METRC materials, and your jurisdiction’s requirements when determining the correct compliance procedure.
Continue Learning
This guide is the starting point. The Secund Look Resource Center will break each major workflow into dedicated practical guides.
- Cannabis Inventory Reconciliation — coming next
- METRC Cultivation Workflow — coming soon
- Cannabis Compliance Inspection Readiness — coming soon
- METRC Plant & Plant Batch Tracking — planned
- METRC Harvest Tracking — planned
- METRC Package Creation — planned
- METRC Transfers & Receiving — planned
Educational disclaimer: This resource provides general operational and educational information. Cannabis regulations and METRC requirements vary by jurisdiction and change over time. This material is not legal advice and does not replace current regulator instructions, official METRC training, or applicable laws and regulations.