A package is Metrc's basic unit of inventory. Anything that can be sold, moved, or transformed, flower, a jar of concentrate, a case of vape cartridges, has to exist as a tagged package before it can legally go anywhere. Understanding how packages get created, split, and adjusted is most of what day-to-day compliance actually is once plants are out of the picture.
The Tag Itself
A package tag is perforated into two pieces. The upper portion stays attached to the package. The lower portion can be used to label a display container or lab paperwork tied to that package, but it doesn't replace proper packaging. All flower has to be in its final package form. Bud jars for display are not allowed. The tag encodes its unique ID three ways: printed numerals, a UCC-128 barcode, and RFID, alongside the facility name, license number, the tag order number it came from, and the word "Cannabis" printed plainly for identification.
Four States
| Tab | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Active | Current inventory at your facility |
| On Hold | State placed an administrative hold on it; needs attention before it can move |
| Inactive | Discontinued or finished; no longer live inventory |
| In Transit | Currently shipped on an active transfer, or sitting in a rejected transfer |
Expanding a package's row shows its full History, a log of every event that's happened to it, and, where applicable, its Lab Results, including a downloadable certificate of analysis once the testing lab has actually released the results. Until release, that tab stays empty even if testing is complete.
What You Can Do to a Package
The available actions depend on your license type. New Packages repackages, splits, or combines an existing package, and it's also how you record remediation for a package that failed lab testing when the remediation method requires repackaging. Submit for Testing, which creates a lab sample package, is limited to Distributors and Microbusinesses. Remediate, for failed-test product that doesn't need repackaging, is limited to Manufacturers and Microbusinesses. Create Plantings, which turns an immature-plant package back into a new immature plant lot, is limited to Cultivators and Microbusinesses.
A few other actions matter regardless of license type. Change Items lets you correct the item designation, but only within 24 hours of creating the package, after that it's locked. Adjust updates the quantity in a package. Donation marks a package as donated, but once another licensee has accepted a donated package into their inventory, only that removal window before acceptance is still open, and only the licensee who made the original designation can undo it. Finish closes out a package once its quantity hits zero. Discontinue undoes a package created in error, but only before it's been modified or transferred in any way, once it's touched, that door closes.
Building a Package from a Harvest
Packages created directly from a harvest batch pull weight from one or more active harvests tied to a single strain. You select the item, the unit of measure, and how much weight comes from each source harvest, and every package needs at least one contents entry connecting it back to where the material came from.
Building a Package from an Existing Package
This is how repacking, splitting, and combining actually happen; a new package is built by pulling defined quantities from one or more existing packages. The "Same Item" option lets you repackage using the source package's item name without permanently adding that item to your own facility's item list, useful when you've received something you don't normally stock under that name. The Production Batch checkbox flags a package as a manufactured batch, concentrates, infused edibles, infused non-edibles, distinct from a straight repack. If pulling from a source package brings its remaining quantity to exactly zero, Metrc offers to finish that source package in the same action.
The Manufacturing Chain
Manufacturing is where package tagging compounds. Picture flower and leaf transferred in from a cultivator, converted into an intermediate concentrate, then that concentrate partially used to infuse a batch of a thousand cookies, then that batch broken down into individually packaged, sellable units. Every one of those steps, the concentrate, the cookie batch, each final packaged unit, needs its own new package tag. Each new tag links back to the one that preceded it, which is what keeps the chain of custody intact from raw flower to finished edible. Skip tagging an intermediate step and you've broken a link the state can no longer trace.
Adjustments Are Not a Sales Fix
Package Adjustments corrects the recorded quantity of a package, weight, volume, or count, and every adjustment requires both a state-defined reason and, in California, a note explaining it, even for reasons that are technically optional elsewhere. This tool is explicitly not for correcting sales made in a store.
| Adjustment Reason | Reason Usage |
|---|---|
| Display Sample | Cannabis goods used for display purposes in a licensed retail area |
| Enforcement Testing | Samples removed under order of state or local jurisdiction for enforcement-related analysis |
| Failure to Thrive | Cannabis plant failure to grow or develop vigorously |
| Incorrect Quantity | Package received via transfer wasn't correctly weighed or counted. Not for sales corrections; reject instead if the variance is significant |
| Mandated Destruction | Destroyed as a result of a state or local authority mandated or supervised process |
| Onsite Testing | Internal quality assurance on a licensed premise. Not official state testing |
| Over Pulled / Under Pulled | Too much or too little product moved into a new package relative to Metrc's records; requires a note pointing to the corresponding package |
| Oversold / Undersold | Sales reporting discrepancies |
| Public Safety/Recall | Addressing a potential or imminent threat to public safety; goods removed from sale, distribution, and consumption |
| QA Test Sample | Sample for internal quality assurance testing. Not official state testing |
| Regulatory Test Sample | The representative sample obtained by a licensed lab for regulatory compliance testing |
| Research & Development | Product used for research and development |
| Sample Tested | Lab-only: the portion of a representative sample used for compliance testing. Remainder retained 45 business days |
| Scale Variance | Measurable weight difference due to a scale |
| Spoilage | Deterioration of packaged product |
| State-Authorized Adjustment | Requires prior state approval and a Metrc support ticket number in the notes |
| Theft | Inventory discrepancy due to theft; licensing authority must be notified |
| Trade Sample | Cannabis goods given to employees; requires employee name/ID and date and time in the notes |
| Voluntary Surrender | Coordinated with state or local jurisdiction; goods voluntarily surrendered |
| Waste (Unusable Product) | Rendered unrecognizable and unusable, disposed of per licensing authority regulations |
| Weight Change Due to Moisture | Packaged product's weight changed due to moisture content change |
One Tag, One Use
Like plant tags, package tags are used once. There's no salvaging a tag off a discontinued or finished package for reuse elsewhere. Whatever quantity you assign, whatever item you name, that's the record permanently tied to that specific UID.