In the fall of 2024, Josh Kennedy — a Missouri rancher and captain for the Nixa Fire Protection District — had back surgery. Recovery kept him away from the fire department for three months, giving him something rare for a rancher balancing cattle backgrounding and firefighting: more time.
“I was out of the fire service for three months. That kind of reinvigorated my desire just to be on the farm,” he said. “I could drive through in a management kind of position and just look at things. It gave me the ability to slow down and kind of regroup.”
That pause granted Kennedy the clarity to finally tackle something he’d long wanted to improve for 4K Cattle Company: bookkeeping.
“I identified that bookkeeping was an area we needed to majorly improve on. So I started chasing down options and ideas and ways to do it better.”
Background
Josh Kennedy, along with his wife and two children, owns 4K Cattle Company in Aurora, Missouri — a small town nestled between Springfield and Joplin.
“I've grown up my entire life here in southwest Missouri,” Kennedy said. “My mom's side of the family was the farming side. I just got into it at a young age and I fell in love with it. I've been in love with the farming business my whole life.”
From backgrounding his first calves in fourth grade to building a grow yard and expanding the business, Kennedy’s path has always been rooted in hard work and independence. Today, the operation moves 500–600 head of cattle a year.
“We buy feeder cattle, we grow them and then we turn around and sell them,” he explained. “We do ship some cattle out west into Kansas to feed yards and finish them out. But predominantly we're just buying and putting on weight and reselling.”
In addition to running the farm, Kennedy works full-time as a fire captain. “I work two days and then I'm off four days. So it works really well with the farm – yet the farm's where my heart is.”
The Challenge: Growth Without Support
Kennedy’s operation has grown steadily over the past 23 years — but his record-keeping system hadn’t kept pace. A combination of mental math and Excel spreadsheets worked when he was trading 50–60 head a year. But at 500 plus, it was a liability.
“You start off the first of the year with a new goal of, ‘I'm going to keep up with the bookkeeping this year.’ And we might make it to March,” he said. “But then you get into crops; you get into hay. You’re typically moving and trading a lot of cattle. Things just get busy, and the office work kind of gets put on the back burner.”
“I think a lot of that's just mental because you're like, ‘Oh, I'm already six months behind. It's going to take forever to dig back through that and catch it up.’ So it just compounds.”
The stakes were high. “Especially in these times where margins are really tight, and things are really expensive — equipment, feed cost, the cattle cost — you really need to know where you are.”
The Search: What Would Actually Save Time?
Kennedy had considered QuickBooks before. “I wasn’t sure, like, how’s that really going to work with the farm? To be honest, I didn’t really want to pay for any platform monthly. I did everything on Excel sheets.”
But the cost of not investing in an accounting software was mounting. “You’re going to Tractor Supply, you’re buying feed, you’re buying a pair of gloves, you’re buying maybe a fencing tool or something... that stuff takes a lot of time. With Tractor Supply, for example, I'd get an itemized receipt with items that fall into different categories of my bookkeeping. Having to manually separate out those items in an Excel sheet was a tedious process.”
An ad for Ambrook caught his eye. “Everything’s readily available in there and you don’t have to go and do a lot of the data entry that I would have to do manually on an Excel sheet.”
The Shift: A System That Fits
In early 2025, Kennedy started using Ambrook — and quickly noticed a difference.
“I can sit down and pull it up on the computer. Everything’s already pretty much uploaded in there. We just have to sort through and identify where each line item needs to go. It makes things a lot easier.”
What was once overwhelming now feels manageable — and even motivating. “Really, it’s just put me more at ease that I can accomplish this goal of being able to keep track of my books. And do it in a much better way.”
The Results: Visibility, Confidence, and a Stronger Future
Beyond time savings, Kennedy now has clarity that helps him run the business more strategically.
“With Ambrook, we can answer questions like, 'Do we want to buy a different truck to pull a stock trailer?' Being able to see a current and accurate picture of how the farm is performing financially helps us make better decisions of whether we can afford to upgrade equipment or not.”
Before, when his banker asked for a balance sheet, Kennedy described his response as: “‘Well, hold on. Give me a couple weeks. Let me get it back up to date.’”
But now with Ambrook? “My balance sheet is readily available. It’s so easy to manipulate and go back in there to change things if you need to change something. It’s just right there — handy.”
What’s Next: Systems That Support Growth
Kennedy’s near-term focus is rebuilding equity after years of investing in infrastructure and equipment. “We've been in this development phase pretty much our entire existence. And we've kind of made some of those decisions by the skin of our teeth. We could have been better informed.”
His long-term vision is clear: growth. “We live on a farm that’s joined by three other places. If any of that would ever come up for sale, we have the potential to put together about 400 acres. That’s always in the back of my mind — but land right now here is super expensive.”
Reaching that next level starts with disciplined financial management. “We’re going to have to build our equity back. We’re going to have to know what our costs are and what we’re able to accomplish and get educated on that.”
That’s where better books come in. “I believe that’s how I’m gonna take my business to the next level,” he said. “It’s made my goal more achievable — to build better bookkeeping habits. I've got a good relationship with my banker, and this will only make it stronger.”
His advice for others on the fence? “I never wanted to spend money on something like this. I could do Excel for free. But just the short time I’ve been using Ambrook, it’s well worth it. The platform, the ease of use, the support — it’s a no-brainer.”