Dama Debuts Payroll Solution For Cannabis Companies

Cannabis companies will now have more options for payroll with a new product from Dama, an industry banking and payments company. The new product, called Dama Payroll, will assist with payroll, employee timekeeping, labor management, workload planning and other elements of payroll, a press release said on Thursday (June 24).

Per the release, Dama Payroll will be able to integrate with the company’s other solutions.

“People are the driving force of every company, so by adding Dama Payroll to our suite of offerings we’re not only making it easier for our customers to manage their employees, we’re making it easier for them to grow their businesses,” said Anh Hatzopoulos, Dama co-founder and chief executive officer. “Dama continues to become a one-stop shop where cannabis companies can take care of all their banking and business needs.”

Dama also offers access to FDIC-insured premier banking, installment loans, secured credit cards, cash management and merchant services as well as its Dama Smart Safe.

Legal marijuana businesses have had to tread a fine line for years now as the laws changed and things began to improve for the industry. One issue with the businesses was that they were often unable to link up with financial services. Instead, they had to use cash.

MRB Direct President Patrick Chung told PYMNTS that the perils of using cash include cannabis firms spending around 10 percent of their time just counting cash. And he said other side effects include not being able to digitally account for the funds or have any visibility into how cash flow is going.

Even now that legalization is expanding, though, financial institutions working with cannabis companies are running into new problems, including issues like risks and compliance. More financial institutions (FIs) have been looking into the business side of cannabis, although banks have tended to drop marijuana-related clients after a short amount of time.

According to Chung, that’s because black markets are still associated with cannabis, which ends up creating problems with compliance reviews.