Cannabis businesses air grievances over BioTrack to state committee

Dispensaries can choose any point-of-sale software to use in their stores but many choose to use BioTrack Core, a BioTrack product separate from the state-level software that runs ARSTEMS. Regardless of the provider, the store-level point-of-sale systems must communicate information about inventory, sales and patients with the state system in real time. When the software systems are down, stores can’t make sales because they are unable to communicate with the state system that tracks sales, inventory, patient purchase limits and more. 

“When they don’t communicate, you cannot proceed with any transaction,” said Robbin Rahman, executive director of Harvest Cannabis dispensary in Conway. “You literally have to stop what you are doing to figure that out.”

Sometimes, the store’s system and the state’s system show a difference in sales, requiring the store to adjust things in the system and prompting an investigation by the state, Rahman said. 

Doralee Chandler, director of the Alcoholic Beverage Control division, said she will dismiss or reduce fines or issue warnings when she has determined that a violation is the result of a software issue. 

Adam Maldonado of Delta Cannabis dispensary in West Memphis described to the committee how a power surge in August caused his dispensary to lose its connectivity to ARSTEMS as well as digital files regarding its inventory. 

Maldonado said he had been told BioTrack would back up inventory data daily but that data had not been backed up in over a year. Maldonado said he was disappointed in Biotrack’s level of service solving the problem and that has store lost approximately $100,000 over the weekend it was closed to fix the problem.

Moe Afaneh, a vice president for BioTrack, spoke after Maldonado and said the system had been backed up but a problem had occurred at the store level that prevented proper storage of the digital files. 

BioTrack provided a written response to the complaints leveled by Maldonado, stating that the company had “met or exceeded every contractual obligation with the state of Arkansas.” The response also said that the complaint lodged against the company was “misleading and, in many instances, inaccurate.” 

The document also showed data that showed BioTrack has had little downtime and had been up and running more than 99% of the time. 

Mary Claire McLaurin, director of compliance for Good Day Farm, was also scheduled to speak at the hearing but was unable to attend. McLaurin said this week that she has a number of concerns about BioTrack. McLaurin said the system does not work as seamlessly as software from Metrc that Good Day works with in Missouri, Louisiana and Mississippi. 

McLaurin said she was concerned about the level of service Biotrack uses to address problems. Good Day employees often have to call Biotrack technicians on the West Coast to fix problems but those employees work in the Pacific time zone and don’t start their work day until later than Good Day’s employees in Arkansas. 

“We’re waiting for those people to wake up and get to work and it’s almost lunchtime by the time we can get somebody to help us,” McLaurin said. “That’s a big issue.”

Bill Paschall, director of the Arkansas Cannabis Industry Association, said he has spoken with people in the cannabis industry in other states and has learned that there is no perfect software system. Despite the problems his members have experienced with BioTrack, Paschall said the company is working to improve and has offered to do training for cannabis businesses in the coming weeks. 

Chandler told the committee that the BioTrack contract resides with the Department of Health and that ABC plans to handle the next contract. BioTrack’s contract is set to expire in November 2024.