When you're managing 700 head of cattle across 30,000 acres spanning Utah and Wyoming, every decision carries weight. Chase Crandall — a sixth-generation cattle rancher — knows this terrain well, both the land and the business.
Crandall Farms is complex: a cow-calf operation with grazing rights on 10,000 acres of BLM land supplementing the family's private holdings. Growing up, Chase spent his summers working cattle alongside his grandfather. But, as a second son, he wasn’t sure if there’d be a place for him in the family operation. So he earned an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering and worked off the ranch for several years.
But in 2018, the opportunity to return came when his dad needed more help. Chase went back to the ranch full time, pausing only from 2022 to 2024 to earn a master’s in Ranch Management from the King Ranch Institute in South Texas. By summer 2024, he was ready to put that education to work.
But then, everything changed overnight.
The Crisis: Taking Over the Books in an Emergency
Chase’s dad had a horseback accident that resulted in a traumatic brain injury. He spent three weeks in a medically induced coma and another three recovering in the hospital — six weeks total, unable to work.
“He’s doing really well now,” Chase reassured. But during that time, Chase had to step in and take over the books to keep the operation running. “It was kind of a mess,” he recalls. “I had to teach myself a crash course on running QuickBooks.”
What he inherited was an old desktop version of QuickBooks that functioned more like a checkbook than a business management system. “I limped along with it, but it was just a check-writing machine. That’s all it was,” he explained. “I hadn’t been inputting into QuickBooks the deposits and income — anything that was going on outside of just writing checks.”
By year-end, the consequences caught up. “When it came time to do reconciliation with the banks, that took forever. I wasn’t keeping anything up to date.”
The Problem: A December Mess
The desktop version of QuickBooks he inherited created a constant drag on his time, pulling him away from day-to-day management and forcing him to operate without a clear view of the numbers. He wasn’t just handling the demands of a large-scale cattle operation; he was stuck with a legacy system that wasn’t built for the realities of ranch life.
The software wasn’t intuitive to him, and keeping up with daily bookkeeping was nearly impossible while running 700 mother cows across tens of thousands of acres. “The process was awful because I didn't do it until December,” Chase said. “Then I had the entire year's worth of reconciliations to go through — every monthly bank statement to square up.”
That year-end scramble became an exhausting puzzle. “I was scratching my head in December trying to figure out, ‘Okay, what was this deposit in February for?’ It took me a week to get that done.”
Despite the frustrations, Chase got it done, teaching himself on the fly and doing the detective work required to close the books. But he knew this reactive approach wasn’t sustainable. Beyond the time sink, it left him without the financial visibility he wanted to make confident business decisions. He was craving more granular insights into enterprise performance.
“Eventually I’d go to the accountant and they'd square it all up,” he said. But by then, the opportunity to use that information to make proactive business decisions during the year had already passed.
The Solution: Real-Time Visibility and Enterprise Tracking
Chase transitioned to Ambrook at the beginning of 2025, working with a friend from the King Ranch Institute to set up the system properly. They organized the operation into distinct enterprises: replacement heifers, cow-calf, hay, and custom grazing.
The difference was immediate. "Because it's connected to all my accounts, reconciliation is a breeze. Everything stays up to date. I'm able to keep on top of it," Chase said.
The mobile functionality fit his lifestyle on the ranch well. "I'm able to be on Ambrook when I've got downtime. If I'm waiting in line somewhere, I'll go through [on my phone] and tag things."
Receipt management became effortless. "I can just take a picture on my phone and throw the receipt away. Then I don't have to worry about it." This psychological shift has been important. The stress of managing paper trails and dreading year-end reconciliation has been replaced by more confidence in real-time financial tracking. "I still keep some receipts, but I don't have to keep all of them anymore. It's taken a lot of headache off my shoulders."
The Results: From 7 Day Ordeals to 1 Hour Reconciliations
The time savings have been dramatic. Just recently, Chase and his wife sat down to catch up on reconciliations for January through May. “I hadn't done reconciliation all year, but we knocked it out. What took me a week back in December with QuickBooks, I was able to get done in an hour. It was beautiful.”
But the impact goes well beyond time. Chase can now make data-driven decisions about enterprise performance. “I love the feature of being able to tag everything to the enterprise — all costs, all inputs — so I can easily do managerial accounting to figure out how much things are costing me,” he said.
That level of detail has already influenced major decisions. “With grazing replacement heifers — that's a winner for us. We're able to develop our heifers fairly cheaply. And now that I actually know that and know what my costs are, that makes a difference. I know for sure it's the right decision to keep raising those replacement heifers.”
He’s also using the numbers to evaluate next steps for his hay enterprise. “We've got a bunch of hay equipment. We don't raise very much hay. I need to use that hay equipment more, because right now my hay costs are pretty high.”
The data is helping him weigh two clear paths forward. “So the question I’ve got to ask myself and figure out is: is it worth continuing to do hay? If it is, I need to commit. I need to do a lot more hay and sell some of it. Or, if I’m not doing very much, do I get rid of the equipment and just buy hay as needed? With Ambrook, I feel more equipped to make that decision."
Looking Forward: Strategic Management Instead of Crisis Response
With reconciliation taking an hour instead of a week, Chase can focus on higher-value tasks. "When I am bookkeeping, it goes way faster. What I'm able to do instead is focus more on making managerial decisions based on these inputs."
He's developed sophisticated cost allocation methods, breaking overhead expenses across enterprises to understand true profitability. "I'm able to keep track of those costs and make a decision on how much of my cost centers — like general administrative, maintenance, everything — goes to my different enterprises."
Chase's advice to other ranchers reflects this transformation: "Ambrook has been fantastic and has saved me a ton of time. I'm managing things a lot smoother and keeping track of my expenses and costs way tighter than I was before."
For a sixth-generation operation, it’s about more than saving time. It’s about building something resilient enough to last. It’s about stewarding the land, the cattle, the business, and the family — making sure each piece is cared for and carried forward.
It’s about laying a clear path for the next generation, so the ranch can remain both independent and prosperous.
The work is still hard. But now, Chase has the clarity to meet it head-on.