Ambrook’s Aryn Young joined Morning Ag Clips to talk about why farm bookkeeping software has to be built for the operation, not the other way around.
For many of the customers Aryn works with at Ambrook, flexibility is an important part of financial management. She’s taken meetings with producers who are sitting inside the combine; she knows operators who do their books from the truck or in the field. But most bookkeeping software wasn’t designed for those day-to-day realities or the complexities of an ag business.
Aryn has lived on both sides of the equation. She spent 12 years running a regenerative livestock farm in Alaska, alongside a bookkeeping company and a general excavation company. Last week, Aryn joined Kate Ziehms on Morning Ag Clips to talk about why operators need bookkeeping software that’s truly built for their business. “I’ve been the producer that’s using these numbers to make decisions,” Aryn said, “and I’ve also been the bookkeeper trying to make the numbers make sense.”
Now, as an account manager at Ambrook, Aryn helps producers track and analyze financial data in ways that actually match their operation. A dairy farm might not break down its numbers in the same way that a row crop operation would, and a cow-calf ranch will use different metrics than a farmer juggling multiple LLCs. “You can have different enterprises for different pieces of your business,” Aryn explained, “and then add whatever metrics make sense for your production or your system to those enterprises—that might be per head, per field, per acre.”
She spends most days meeting one-on-one with operators across the country, on calls and screen-shares, working through data setups or pulling financial reports that they need. Her favorite moments are when the numbers finally catch up to what operators already knew in their gut: seeing that a particular enterprise or deal was profitable, for example, or getting confirmation that an investment paid off.
It all comes down to helping operators get more time and more clarity. “We want to free you up from spending those nights at the kitchen table, or those late nights at the end of the week sorting through a bunch of receipts,” Aryn said. That’s time producers can put back into their operation. As for clarity, Aryn explained that it doesn’t just help operators get their taxes done. Clarity also means giving operators the ability to make profitable decisions for their business. “That’s the second piece I’d love producers to realize out of Ambrook, and I think it makes it very possible.“
