How Ambrook Wallet "eliminated the middleman" for Rocking 2R Cattle Company

Dakota Rodriguez is 27. She graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 2020, and she's been in cattle her whole life, running a cow-calf operation with her grandma since she was "super little."

"I know how to run cattle really well," Dakota says.

What she didn't know was the financial side.

"That was all my grandma's forte," she says. "She had all the financials in her brain and set up on her computer, but I didn't have any of that."

But then, in 2023, Dakota's grandma fell ill. The bookkeeping system that lived in her grandma's head (and in an outdated version of QuickBooks) stopped being usable overnight.

"At that point, I had to figure out how I could make it my own," explains Dakota.

At the same time, Dakota's world was expanding fast: she was managing two ranches, plus cows, horses, and a part-time job.

"I was just so overwhelmed," she says.

The problem: Outdated software, receipts everywhere

Dakota tried to pick up where her grandma left off, but QuickBooks wasn't helping.

"She was using a really outdated version. The updates couldn't come on her computer. It was a whole mess," Dakota says.

Without a clean system, the "books" became stacks.

"I was taking piles of receipts to my financial advisor," she says. "She was like, 'Okay, we can work with this. But I don't really know what to do with it.' And I'm like, 'Girl, I don't know what to do with it either.'"

Dakota didn't need another tool to "learn eventually." She needed something she could use right away, while still spending most of her time outside.

"I'm outside 99% of the time," she says. "I'll come in and do bookwork for maybe 10 minutes, but then I gotta go back outside."

Getting started: set up the ranch the way it actually runs

Dakota found Ambrook through Facebook and Instagram, took a consultation call, and started using it at the end of 2024.

"It reinvented the wheel for me," she says, "because I'm not financially literate, really. It was something I could actually use and understand."

Instead of trying to force her ranch into someone else's template, she started by setting up how her operation actually works.

"First thing I did, obviously, was link my bank account so I could see where money came and went," she says.

Ambrook Support helped make setup fast.

"A member of the Ambrook team was like, 'Okay, you click here, you click here.' I was like, 'Okay. Easy.'"

Then she set up her enterprises: "Cow-calf, bulls, my horse training business, hunting, and overhead."

The everyday payoff: tag once, and stop redoing work

Once transactions started flowing in, Dakota could tag them as she went, on her phone. For someone who's outside nearly all day, the mobile app was essential.

"You just tag the transaction as you go along," she says.

Over time, recurring expenses started taking care of themselves.

"My PG&E [Pacific Gas and Electric Company] transactions, for example. Every single time, I don't have to touch it," Dakota says. "It just automatically goes where I want it to go."

The real unlock: Ambrook Wallet

Dakota set up Ambrook Wallet early. She'd already been using it to send and deposit checks, so she knew how to fund the Wallet. But then she discovered something that would change how her ranches operate.

"I was exploring the app and saw where it said, 'Wallet,'" Dakota says, remembering how she first started learning about all the features. "And I was like, okay, what's this?"

She saw she could get a spending card tied directly to Ambrook.

"And I was like, 'Wait a minute, this is going to be perfect.' So I immediately got in on that."

The problem Wallet solved

Dakota and her boyfriend are basically the whole crew.

"My boyfriend and I are pretty much the only two people that operate these two ranches," she says.

Before Wallet, every ranch purchase required coordination. Her boyfriend would buy supplies on his personal credit card, then Venmo request Dakota for reimbursement.

"He would buy it on his credit card and then Venmo request me," Dakota says. "That was all well and good, but it made me a middleman. It added extra steps."

Wallet removed that friction entirely.

How it works day-to-day

The card arrived quickly. "Ambrook sent me a card in four days," Dakota says, which immediately simplified operations.

Now Dakota funds Wallet from any of her connected bank accounts, her boyfriend buys what the ranch needs, and she gets immediate visibility.

"Whatever he gets, I get an alert from Ambrook, that shows where he was and how much he spent," Dakota says. "I can go right into the app and tag it."

Because all her bank accounts are connected to Wallet, she can pull funds from wherever makes sense, without juggling multiple physical cards.

"It's really easy to pull however much I need from whatever account I need," Dakota says. "I don't have to say to him, 'Take this card,' and then not have my bank card with me for the rest of the day."

Real-time notifications that keep her in control

The Wallet feature Dakota mentions most isn't flashy; it's practical. Notifications.

"I like the notifications a lot," she says. "It's all about the visibility."

Because she sees every purchase as it happens, she can stay aware of what's in the Wallet without constantly checking balances.

"That way, I know pretty much how much is in that Wallet at all times," Dakota says. "I can easily keep track."

If a bigger purchase is coming, she tops it up.

"He just has to tell me a day in advance," she says, "and I put enough money in there and then he can go get pipe or whatever he needs."

Transactions that tag themselves

For repeat vendors, Wallet gets smarter over time.

"There are some key places that we usually get stuff from," Dakota says. "Like, there's this one place that we always get feed from."

When her boyfriend uses the Ambrook card at that feed store, the transaction auto-tags.

"It automatically sends me a notification saying, hey, he got this much at your feed place," Dakota says. "Then I don't have to tag that transaction since it's always the place I get feed. It's automatically tagged, so I don't have to manually go in there and fix it."

Paying bills and sending checks without the paper chase

Dakota also uses Wallet to pay vendors and send checks, especially for the handful that go out every month.

If there's no invoice, she can type in the details. And she likes that vendors can receive an emailed receipt, adding a layer of professionalism and tracking.

Rebuilding a legacy

Dakota and her boyfriend Alex are sixth-generation ranchers managing a fourth-generation property. That means most of the structures (fencing, barns, shelters) were built by her great-grandfather about 100 years ago.

"We are really working on tear down and rebuild," Dakota says. "That's kind of the burden of our generation."

With favorable cattle market conditions, they've been able to allocate funds toward major infrastructure projects instead of constant patchwork repairs.

And Wallet has been central to making those projects happen.

"A lot of what we're doing wouldn't be possible without that Wallet feature," Dakota says, "because he is able to buy the things we need to complete all of our projects."

The proof point: her financial advisor liked it

For Dakota, one of the biggest validations for Ambrook came from an important source: her financial advisor.

After years of bringing in "random notebook papers and receipts," having everything organized in Ambrook felt like redemption.

"I think it's because I traumatized her for the years past of just bringing her the most random things," Dakota says. "She was just happy that something was on the computer and nice and organized."

Conclusion: "I can be both"

Dakota doesn't pretend she became a natural bookkeeper overnight. She still identifies as "the cow person."

But today, Dakota is running two ranches with a system she actually understands and controls. The books move forward whether she’s in the pasture, on the road, or rebuilding fence with her boyfriend. Purchases happen when they need to happen. She sees them immediately. And nothing gets lost in the process.

That shift matters. Not because it turned her into a bookkeeper, but because it let her stay focused on the work that keeps the ranch going. Infrastructure projects don’t stall. Supplies get bought without back-and-forth. The business side no longer dictates where she has to be.

The Ambrook card lives in the truck. The notifications come to her phone. And Dakota can stay outside, doing what she’s always done best: running cattle and building a ranch that can keep going well into the future.