How BatchNav Tracks Task Activities and Labor

Cannabis operators know that labor is one of their largest — and most difficult to track — costs (representing 20-50% of total costs). Between production work, meetings, breaks, and highly specific cultivation or lab activities, most systems either over-simplify labor or miss it entirely.

BatchNav was designed to solve this by combining two complementary tools: the Labor Tracker and the Task Manager. Together, they ensure all hours are captured, costs are allocated correctly, and operational data is tied directly to the batch.

Labor Tracker – Capturing All Payroll Hours

The Labor Tracker records the entire workday of production staff, organized into general task categories.

  • Configurable categories are set up in BatchNav (e.g., Watering, Irrigation, Pruning).
  • Tracks time spent in each process stage by major activity.
  • Ensures ALL payroll hours are captured — including time that isn’t linked to a specific task (meetings, breaks, downtime).
  • Simplifies complex activities: while the Task Manager may differentiate between “Water to EC 2.0” vs. “Water to EC 4.0,” the Labor Tracker rolls them up under a general category like “Watering.”

Intent: Give operators a complete picture of how labor hours are distributed across the facility — not just on production tasks.

 

Task Manager – Precision at the Batch Level

The Task Manager goes deeper, capturing specific operational actions, resources, and data points.

  • Records task actions, direct costs (labor, materials, equipment), and operational data (e.g., EC, pH, room checks).
  • Captures labor as a subset of total hours — direct work on a task, but not meetings or slack time.
  • Tasks can be highly specific (watering to EC 2.0, pruning, scouting, machine setup) and unlimited in number.
  • Tasks can be scheduled individually or in templates, such as “Watering 5x/day” or “Lab calibration 2x/week.”
  • Templates group and schedule tasks within a process stage — or across multiple stages.

 

Two Types of Tasks*

  1. Batch Tasks
    • Act on a specific batch lot.
    • Resources (labor, materials, equipment) from attached bills are applied directly to the batch.
  2. Audit Tasks
    • Act on multiple batch lots within a process stage.
    • Resources from attached bills are applied at the process stage level.

 

Why This Matters

Most systems either:

  • Oversimplify labor (lumping it into one cost pool), or
  • Track only direct labor on specific activities while ignoring the rest of payroll.

BatchNav does both:

  • Labor Tracker = macro view (all payroll hours by stage & category).
  • Task Manager = micro view (detailed actions, resources, and operational data tied to batches).

 

Together, they provide a complete, accurate, and audit-ready labor capture system — critical for both operational insights and financial compliance under §471 and §280E.

The Bottom Line

In cannabis manufacturing, labor is too valuable to leave untracked.

BatchNav’s dual system ensures you capture:

  • Every payroll hour (Labor Tracker), and
  • Every detailed task activity and data point (Task Manager).

With BatchNav, you get the whole picture of labor and activity costs — batch by batch, stage by stage.

*  A 3rd task type: Environmental (room) task captures environmental data such as temps, humidity, light levels (typically sourced from your environmental systems) and attaches these operational data points to every batch lot in the room.