Lost checks, armored trucks, and trips to the bank - oh my! The cannabis industry has long been plagued with burden and hidden costs of cash and check transactions for wholesale purchases due to underbanking from traditional financial institutions. LeafLink’s Direct Payments allows cannabis operators to send funds digitally via ACH to pay sellers faster with lower costs and improved transparency. The best part? Direct Payments is 100% free for all buyers!
How does it work?
Direct Payments is a simplified way for buyers to increase their payment speed, traceability, and security by shifting any offline cash or check payment activity into LeafLink. With a simple bank-to-bank connection, cannabis operators can save time and money by reducing lost funds, risky cash transportation, and manual accounting tasks and errors that make it challenging to work with cash and checks.
After you've linked your bank account and the seller has created an invoice, the invoice will populate on your Invoices Page within the Deliveries tab. Please note that any invoices that ask you to Confirm Delivery is an invoice that is tied to Flexible Payments and is eligible for net terms (Buy Now, Pay Later). In the case of Direct Payments, you would search for the relevant invoice in which you can Authorize the payment, as seen below.
Upon authorizing the payment, the funds will be debited from your bank account and sent directly to the seller. In order to access and centralize all of your Accounts Payable, you can navigate to the Paid tab. For any invoices that were paid using Direct Payments, the payment method within the Payment details column will be shown as "Direct Payment," as seen below:
What are the benefits of using Direct Payments?
Cannabis businesses have long had to adapt to being underbanked by traditional financial institutions, leading to inefficient and costly cash and check work arounds becoming commonplace in the industry. LeafLink developed Direct Payments to cure many of our customers’ common headaches, with features like:
- Fee-Free Payments: Save money on ACH transactions with cost-free money movement so you can reinvest in growing your business.
- Digital Transactions: Send, track, and receive funds without leaving the platform to save on expenses around cash, checks, and lost funds.
- Centralized Accounting: Save time and streamline workflows with automated and connected dashboards.
- Seamless Onboarding: Sign up and start transacting in under five minutes with integrated digital onboarding and bank linking through Plaid.
- Secure Data & Transactions: Connect your bank through secure account linking provided by Plaid to gain peace of mind that your data and transactions are protected.
Where is Direct Payments available?
LeafLink users in Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, and Pennsylvania are all eligible to leverage Direct Payments.
How do I get started?
Since Direct Payments doesn’t require any credit underwriting to start transacting, getting started is as simple as linking your bank account. Once our secure bank linking tool, Plaid, has connected your bank credentials to LeafLink, you can start sending digital payments automatically, streamlining your operations and reducing expenses.
If you’d like to get started, click on the Payment tab in the top left corner of the Marketplace. Note: if you do not already have a Payments account, you’ll need to click “Join Today” and go through the digital onboarding process before proceeding. Once inside your Payments account, simply link your bank account in the Settings tab and start authorizing payments on the Invoices tab.