Latest / CattleUSA Daily / 148: How to Save Time and Stress on Bookkeeping as a Producer with Dan Schlosser

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148: How to Save Time and Stress on Bookkeeping as a Producer with Dan Schlosser · CattleUSA Daily

• 0:00
  Welcome to another episode of the Cattle USA Daily podcast.
• 0:03
  Today we are welcoming on Dan with Ambrook.
• 0:07
  On to the podcast. The Ambrook team has been doing
• 0:11
  some really cool things across the agricultural industry over
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  the past couple years. And if you are unfamiliar with
• 0:18
  Ambrook, Ambrook is a new software that has hit the market
• 0:22
  in the last few years for farmers and ranchers.
• 0:24
  That is a software that is helping you organize your books
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  online, helping you actually figure out where your numbers
• 0:32
  are, where everything is going. And it is a really, really
• 0:36
  interesting platform that was built specifically for farmers
• 0:39
  and ranchers. So without further ado, let's go
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  ahead and hop into this podcast episode with Dan.
• 0:43
  But before we do, you guys know the routine at this point.
• 0:46
  If you could take half a second to go like subscribe, rate and
• 0:50
  review this podcast, share it with a friend.
• 0:52
  We really appreciate it here at the team.
• 0:54
  And let's go ahead and get into this episode with Dan.
• 1:01
  Welcome to the Cattle USA Daily podcast, your go to source for
• 1:04
  the latest livestock markets, industry insights and the
• 1:07
  updates shaping agriculture today.
• 1:10
  I'm your host, Lauren Moylan, a passionate advocate for
• 1:12
  agriculture, here to keep you informed and connected.
• 1:16
  Now let's dive into today's episode.
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  Dan, welcome to the podcast. We are so excited to dive in
• 1:26
  today with you. I want to 1st open up our
• 1:29
  conversation and ask a little bit about the history of
• 1:32
  Ambrook. You guys kind of started with a
• 1:35
  focus on water security and climate resilience.
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  What was that aha moment quote, UN quote that led to shifting
• 1:44
  towards the financial aspect and just like a tool for farmers and
• 1:47
  ranchers? Yeah, absolutely.
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  And Lauren, thank you so much for having me.
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  Really excited to be here. We started off with maybe a
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  little bit of a naive thought that all we needed to do to help
• 2:02
  farmers be more profitable and sustainable was help them find
• 2:06
  access to funding. We started during COVID and knew
• 2:09
  that access to funding was a challenge and that the margins
• 2:13
  were getting thinner. And we saw people say, oh, this
• 2:15
  is so painful and the paperwork behind it is such a problem.
• 2:18
  And we thought, oh, great, will help you fill out loan and grant
• 2:22
  paperwork and thought that was sort of the whole problem.
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  And we help people apply for hundreds of thousands of dollars
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  of COVID relief money with CFAP. But then talking with folks and
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  we spent the first year of the company really just on the phone
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  with producers. What we learned was that like,
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  yeah, maybe some grants are easy to just like fill out the
• 2:41
  paperwork and get paid. But really running the business
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  and getting the next loan or grant application required a
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  PNLA balance sheet and like all your records in place and your
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  receipts captured and tracked down to the project or, or
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  change you're making. And that that was a real
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  struggle for folks. And so we sort of started to tug
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  the the piece of thread and found the bigger problem, which
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  is that, you know, farms have been really struggling.
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  Farms and ranches have been struggling with tools that are
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  too generic or aren't high tech enough and haven't been able to
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  really get access to things that save them time and money.
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  And and that getting organized bookkeeping, invoicing, payment
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  tools all in one place is was a gap.
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  And so we decided to go deep with a first set of about 40 to
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  50 customers building out the core version of what is Amber
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  today. Wow, that is so exciting and
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  just so cool that you guys kind of like started in one aspect
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  and you were like, we're going to shift and this is where we're
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  going to develop into. And you really just were
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  listening to the people that you were working with every single
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  day and listen to them and heard them.
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  And you were like, hey, we might be able to help with that.
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  Like, let's pull on that string. Let's tug on that and see what
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  we can do. Yeah, we were obsessed with the
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  problem, but I think the luckily we weren't too attached to what
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  we thought the solution was at the beginning.
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  And I think that's something that we continue to believe is
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  important to our culture. Like if we come in thinking that
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  we know the right answer and we know the solution that people
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  need, too often it's like when you're a hammer, everything
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  looks like a nail. And so instead, we wanted to be
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  sort of obsessed with the customer.
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  You know, our first 20 customers, I actually flew out
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  and visited them on their ranches, at their kitchen
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  tables, help them on board to the platform.
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  And those early customers, we, we call them design partners.
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  It's maybe a little corny, but the, you know, those early
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  partners helped us make a product that we can now
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  evangelize confidently that, you know, is really going to help
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  other producers like them. Wow.
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  Yeah, You've talked about technology and the fact that
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  like how technology should really just, it should fit into
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  the ranch, not necessarily the other way around.
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  What does that kind of look like in practice at Ambrook and how
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  you guys partner with producers on that?
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  Yeah, absolutely. When we looked at the existing
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  solutions, be it pen and paper or QuickBooks desktop or online,
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  what we saw is that producers of all sort of stages were missing
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  out and, and had something that wasn't really built for their
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  business. And so at the very beginning
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  level for folks that we heard of stories of receipt stuck in cup
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  holders or in the glove box, the truck and really struggling to
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  get those even just into one box to handle the accountant was
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  like, you know, progress. So we built receipt capture that
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  works on your phone, and we built a card that auto notifies
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  you to take a picture of the receipt and categorize it right
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  when you're in the Tractor Supply, sort of before you even
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  leave the register. Then for producers that were
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  sort of filing their taxes, but doing it with generic software
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  that we heard about how Schedule F was such a pain and you either
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  had to keep two different sets of books, one for you and then
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  one for taxes, or you had to run your business using the sort of
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  government form and like that. Neither of those things were
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  working. And so we built Ambrook to map
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  your categories to your Schedule F and then getting higher level
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  into the kinds of decisions that farmers wanted to make.
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  We heard actually, you know, just an example or a Ranger we
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  work with in Utah and Wyoming. You know, he was a sort of
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  second son, didn't think he would have to take over the
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  ranch until his dad had a horseback accident that he both
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  struggled with QuickBooks Desktop and some of the record
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  keeping workflows and receipt management burden.
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  And he spent like weeks doing reconciliations at the end of
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  the year. What was that thing in February?
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  But with Ambrook, he not only simplified those sort of
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  everyday workflows with a mobile app that keeps it possible to
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  sort of stay real time and on top of your books and have one
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  set of books, not two. He also implemented our
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  enterprise analysis feature. He separated out his business
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  into replacement heifers, cow calf hay and custom grazing so
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  that he could make a decision like, are those piece of
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  equipment paying for themselves or, you know, is the
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  depreciation more than it should be?
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  And, you know, using, you know, he heard about Ambrook from a
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  friend of his who was a King Ranch Institute grad and, you
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  know, is an Ambrook certified advisor.
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  And I think encouraged him, hey, it's not just getting on top of
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  the records, but it's also you're going to make more
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  confident decisions. And thankfully, his dad is now
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  doing much better. But like that family is making
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  decisions that are informed by data rather than just instinct
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  because they have that like enterprise level detail or you
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  know, Ambroke, you could do it with field level detail and
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  split that out, you know, as a percentage on acreage to be
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  like, oh, I'll do it a one to two to two if I have two bigger
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  fields and one smaller field. I think one of my favorite
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  aspects is being able to like divide up those fields and see
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  just certain areas. Just you can go so granular with
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  this technology that like and it speeds things up because
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  granite, yes, I could sit here and I could do the math and I
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  could get out my calculus book from college and try to figure
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  it out myself. Do I want to do that?
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  Absolutely not. Like I can think of a million
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  other ways that I would like to spend my day that is not in the
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  office trying to calculate ROI on our replacement heffers this
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  year. Like.
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  I can. Think of a million other things
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  and I think it's so cool that you can get so big picture, but
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  you can also get so granular and you can be detailed where you
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  need to be detailed. I think that that really speaks
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  to the aspect of being a partner to farmers and ranchers that you
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  talked about, because this is a tool that was built alongside
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  farmers and ranchers and actually is able to help you
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  grow your business. It it's not a tool that's made
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  for every other small business or business enterprise in the
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  world. It's meant for farmers and
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  ranchers. That's that's exactly right.
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  And, and we built it with those farmers and ranchers.
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  The, the one of the things we heard was that like, and it
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  became very clear, we need to be a tool.
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  We need to assist people. Like when we think about AI
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  automation and like features that are saving time, they need
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  to be empowering because the person who's going to make the
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  financial decision is not the software.
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  We're not going to tell you, you know, when to when you should be
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  planting or when you should be harvesting, how much to put on
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  your field, whether or not you should buy or sell cattle at
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  this price. But we want to inform you with
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  that information. You also not every ranch is
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  going to be run at the same level granularity.
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  Some people go down to the tag, some people are at groups, Some
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  people are just looking at, well, is it just cattle versus
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  hay enterprise? And like, we want to be flexible
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  to meet the right level of detail so that folks can make
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  the decisions that they need to make on their operation.
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  Yeah. Well, and I think it goes back
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  to looking at our operations, like businesses and really
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  trying to treat them that way and utilizing tools that
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  inevitably just make our lives easier and inevitably give us
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  more time to spend on things that are making us money and
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  making informed decisions. I really like how you touched on
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  that of making informed decisions like, hey, this isn't
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  here to tell you what to do, but it is here to help you make an
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  informed decision so that you're not just sitting here thinking
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  off base or based off of what you did last year.
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  You're sitting here saying this is what the market looks like
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  this year. This is what our operation looks
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  like this year. Let's make a decision based off
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  of that, which I think is just so cool and so needed within
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  this industry as well. Yeah, I mean it's what we heard
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  and what we continue to hear. You know, I was just, we are
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  visiting folks even just the last couple months is story
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  after story of, yes, people making decisions based on, you
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  know, their gut and instinct, but also being pretty accurate
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  about that. It's like, I ran this business
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  for 30 years making decisions this way and it worked.
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  But what we're seeing is that it's getting harder to run a
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  ranch, harder to run a farm and that, you know, we are, we see
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  ourselves as like, we need to just make it a little bit
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  easier. It's always going to be hard,
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  but we want to help folks make the decisions they want to make
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  or with data or explain the business to someone new.
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  Like could be passing off to the next generation.
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  It could be, you know, I haven't needed an operating line in
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  years, but right now it looks like I might need to go out and
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  get one this year. So I need to be able to explain
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  my business to a banker. And it's like most bankers don't
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  accept. Look, my business has been
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  working for 20 years. That's probably good enough to
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  to, you know, write me a loan. Yeah, absolutely.
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  That's just, it's so fascinating to hear the background and the
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  story of the birth of this business and how you guys kind
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  of like came about with the idea and the innovation of this and
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  built it over the past few years into what it is now.
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  And I just, I think it's so cool you guys work really, really
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  closely with producers on this. And I think that's one of your
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  guys core values is working with the people that you are serving.
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  Can you talk a little bit more about that dynamic relationship
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  and how you're kind of taking in feedback, new innovation?
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  And I would also after you touch on that, I would also love to
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  touch on like kind of what's next for Ambroc?
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  What, what are you looking towards in the future expansion?
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  All of those things as well. Yeah.
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  So the and yeah, I appreciate the question.
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  Our first couple years were just with a real small hand group of
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  hand, you know, hand selected group of producers.
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  Over the last year and a half, we've completely exploded and
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  have now over 2500 customers. And so one of the things that we
• 13:00
  reflected on at the beginning of this year was well, we don't
• 13:03
  want to lose touch. So like if we grow, we don't
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  want to then just lose touch and assume, oh great, now we have
• 13:07
  all the answers, let's go, you know, come in with solutions pre
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  baked. And So what we did is we also
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  have been growing the team and so we've done a sort of new
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  cohort of design partners and selected customers that we go
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  visit, check in on. You know, at the beginning it
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  was what are your bookkeeping problems?
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  How might software help you with that Now?
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  It's how is Ambrook doing what, what's working, what's not
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  working? What would you like to see?
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  What decisions are you making now you couldn't make before?
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  What decisions would you like to make?
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  And so that has sort of very directly come back to our road
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  map and, and what I bring to the engineering team is context
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  like, well, in order to make better decisions, I need built
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  in inventory to be able to track different groups of of cattle
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  and what price I should be selling at that what's the cost
• 13:53
  of goods for each of those groups.
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  And so that led us to build inventory management.
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  We heard that reconciliation is really helpful in Ambrook to see
• 14:02
  all the numbers like line up or not, but could it go even
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  faster? And so, you know, earlier this
• 14:07
  year we built automatic reconciliation where we check
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  and see if all the numbers add up and if it is boop, you do one
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  entire month and one click. As we look ahead, what we're
• 14:19
  investing in is helping people make more nuanced decisions for
• 14:23
  the folks that are are looking for cash flow planning and
• 14:27
  understand where they're making losing money.
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  And also when is going to be the low point in cash flow during
• 14:31
  the year so they can plan out the right times, get the best
• 14:34
  loan terms. And we're looking to invest more
• 14:37
  in AI and automation to help reduce the like repetitive tasks
• 14:42
  of bookkeeping. And we really think about
• 14:44
  Ambrook as being a, as suggesting things and being
• 14:48
  helpful and teeing it up for the producer to say, you know, yes,
• 14:52
  yes, yes, that looks right, right, right.
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  Rather than a more delegative, like the computer will just do
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  my books for me and then like, I'll come back and file taxes at
• 15:01
  the end of the year. I think we all would love it if
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  that could be the case. But, you know, until it's
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  perfect, I think we want to empower ranchers with, you know,
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  the the assistance in the tasks they were already going to be
• 15:14
  doing to help save time, spend more time with your family, you
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  know, and, and yeah, less time in the books, hopefully.
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  Yeah, exactly. I know tax season.
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  I have like PTSD of tax season, even as a kid, if I'm being
• 15:28
  completely honest. Because my dad as a kid, one
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  thing that we used to help with during tax season was he would
• 15:33
  bring a box of receipts into the living room.
• 15:36
  He would dump them out and he would say, organize these and
• 15:39
  then add up the totals and let me know what you get at the end.
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  And I remember sitting there and I was like, I was in middle
• 15:46
  school or in early high school doing these things.
• 15:49
  It's not like I was 8 years old watching cartoons and he was
• 15:51
  giving me a calculator, but it was chaotic.
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  Like it was chaotic and unorganized.
• 15:58
  And he was trusting his daughter in 8th grade to give him totals
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  on everything and assume that it was correct.
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  And we were just going off of receipts.
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  And sometimes you don't get receipts for everything.
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  And sometimes things can be inaccurate.
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  Or like I, I've just sat there and watched movies and added up
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  receipts and it took days sometimes to be able to do that.
• 16:19
  And I, as a business owner, love the softwares that I'm able to
• 16:23
  have now that make tax season easy for me and make it
• 16:26
  something that like isn't to be feared or isn't to be looked at
• 16:30
  of like I'm going to get another extension this year because I
• 16:33
  just can't deal with it. Like we're in the middle of
• 16:35
  calving season. I can't deal with taxes right
• 16:37
  now. Texting my accountant.
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  Now let's apply. Let's apply for an extension,
• 16:41
  right? Like it makes it so that it can
• 16:43
  just be I can spend things during, spend my time doing
• 16:46
  things I actually want to do. Yeah, and it's that relief of
• 16:51
  getting to tax season and realizing that the books are
• 16:54
  already done. You just need to run some
• 16:56
  reports, have a call with your accountant, check in about
• 16:59
  depreciation schedules and some of those like end of year
• 17:02
  decisions. We really want to see the winter
• 17:05
  as not tax season, but decision making season and planning
• 17:09
  season. The one of the things we heard
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  talking with producers is they do have free time.
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  It might be waiting in line at the register.
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  It might be sitting in the tractor on auto steer and like,
• 17:20
  how do we take advantage of that time to do the book so that it
• 17:24
  feels like at the end of the week, oh, the week's books are
• 17:26
  already done. Maybe I have to spend, you know,
• 17:29
  20-30 minutes at the computer or just clean things up and, you
• 17:32
  know, checking my my latest reports.
• 17:35
  But you're not. Yeah.
• 17:36
  Overturning that box at the end of the year.
• 17:38
  And even if even if it were, having them all digitized so
• 17:42
  they don't get like lost or crumpled or coffee stained
• 17:44
  receipts, like we think that's a big improvement.
• 17:48
  Yeah, absolutely. And I like, I think it is so
• 17:51
  imperative to have things on my phone like you said and having
• 17:54
  something that I if I am sitting in line somewhere or like have
• 17:59
  time to do something, I can pull up my app on my phone and be
• 18:03
  able to do it. Then like, hey, I have a free 20
• 18:06
  minutes right now. Let's let's like categorize some
• 18:08
  of these receipts. Let's do some of this stuff
• 18:10
  right now. Let's let's take out the cup
• 18:12
  holder worth of receipts and maybe start uploading some of
• 18:14
  them or things like that and just be able to use the best
• 18:17
  that you possibly can. And really leaning into that.
• 18:21
  Like it's very, very imperative that we are using our time
• 18:24
  correctly and using it to continue.
• 18:27
  Like, hey, I want to go to my Little League game tonight for
• 18:30
  my kids. I don't want to have to go sit
• 18:32
  at the kitchen table and deal with my books, right?
• 18:35
  Like no one wants to do that. No one wants to do that at the
• 18:39
  end of the day. Definitely.
• 18:41
  And, and what we've heard from our customers is that like, you
• 18:45
  know, software can help with a lot of those problems, but
• 18:48
  sometimes you need even more help.
• 18:49
  And so we've started to offer a full Service plan where we, we
• 18:53
  serve as almost a fractional CFO that you don't have to pay a
• 18:58
  full time salary to. And then we also have Ambroc
• 19:01
  certified advisors to help with bookkeeping or or CPA questions
• 19:05
  so that like each operation can figure out scale up for what
• 19:08
  they need. Like the level of assistance
• 19:10
  might just be I need a place to get my books straight and to,
• 19:13
  you know, pay invoices, pay bills and send out invoices.
• 19:16
  Having those different options available I think makes it like
• 19:19
  no producer should be dreading December for that.
• 19:22
  Having to go into their books, yes. 100% Well, Dan, as we start
• 19:27
  to round out this podcast, is there anything else that we
• 19:30
  haven't hit on or anything else that you would like to leave
• 19:33
  with our listeners today? Yeah.
• 19:36
  I would just send our, our, our, your listeners to ambrook.com.
• 19:41
  We, we think that, you know, especially as you know, we get
• 19:46
  closer and closer to tax season, the more prepared you are to do
• 19:50
  your books and get ready for next year, the better.
• 19:53
  And so if folks are interested, we are, we have a 30 day free
• 19:57
  trial. We really want to be as producer
• 19:59
  friendly as possible. We encourage folks to try it
• 20:01
  out, see if it's a fit and to talk with our team.
• 20:04
  You know, we have decided to invest heavily in AUS based
• 20:07
  knowledgeable support team that can help folks get started, is
• 20:12
  there to answer questions. They're real people that really
• 20:15
  can understand and help with the business.
• 20:17
  And so we really think that folks should give it a try and
• 20:21
  chat with our team and, and we really hope we can help them get
• 20:24
  more on top of their books next year.
• 20:26
  Hopefully that's a a resolution for a lot of folks, yes.
• 20:29
  Absolutely. Well, Dan, thank you so much for
• 20:31
  your time and coming on and sharing just a little bit more
• 20:33
  about Ambrek's story. It's so fun to hear a little bit
• 20:36
  more about the background of it as someone who has been familiar
• 20:40
  with Ambrek for a while. It's fun to hear just kind of
• 20:42
  the roots and the origin of your guys's business and how it all
• 20:47
  came to be and started. And then I'm always a like
• 20:50
  what's in the future thing like, hey, tell me, tell me what's
• 20:52
  next. And so that's so fun to hear
• 20:55
  what's next for you guys as well as you continue to build and
• 20:58
  grow and and just focus on helping producers in the
• 21:01
  agricultural industry. So Dan, thank you for your time.
• 21:04
  And to all of you listeners out there, like Dan said, check out
• 21:08
  ambrock.com. We have all of those links
• 21:11
  linked down in the show notes for you guys down below as well.
• 21:14
  So that if you have any questions, you can go check out
• 21:17
  any of those links, get a hold of the Ambrock team and see what
• 21:20
  they have to offer and how it could potentially help your
• 21:22
  operation. So Dan, thank you for your time.
• 21:25
  And to all of you listeners out there, we will see you tomorrow
• 21:27
  on another episode. Have a good one y'all.