ArteryInk began in 2014 after the owners (and fellow artists) Gloria and Mara each went through their own health and wellness journeys. This transition inspired them to use their artwork to share the importance of taking better care of the human body. From coloring books to stickers and cards, ArteryInk has grown into providing customized graphics for those in medical fields like nurses, doctors, yoga nutritionists, and even grocery stores. While both are artists and jointly collaborate on the art, Mara focuses more on marketing and communications, while Gloria focuses on production and drawing. Each hand-drawn style of hers can take 40 to 80 hours.

As the demand for their art quickly grew, so did their need to spend less time on entering accounting and financial records into QuickBooks. ArteryInk had outgrown the accountant they met during their time in the service industry and wanted to find a company that could do the job without requiring so much of Gloria’s and Mara’s personal time. As members of a Local First group, they met a few individuals able to fulfill their bookkeeping needs, but they were unsure if the growth potential they wanted was possible. Eventually they were connected with Fine Point Consulting. After the initial meeting, ArteryInk felt like they were at a turning point for their business, sharing, “The Fine Point Consulting team was awesome and gave us the confidence that, with their help, we could really grow our business.”

Mara says that she and Gloria are artists first, and Fine Point Consulting has helped them understand what the financial side entails, where their business was at monetarily, and how they could help ArteryInk.

“Fine Point began with a very personalized approach,” Mara remembers, “and we were even able to negotiate the price of their services to meet our current needs, and increase those services as our sales grew.”

ArteryInk still appreciates this flexibility, and Mara continues, “Working with Fine Point Consulting isn’t just dealing with people that know numbers doing a job - it’s dealing with humans that know humans.” After signing on with Fine Point, it was a huge relief to ArteryInk to get everything situated in just 2 to 3 days.

‍
Productivity has only increased for Gloria and Mara, and their business can continue to move forward uninterrupted. When issues arise, or a notice comes in the mail, production is not impeded. Mara says, “I save so much time scanning and emailing any unexpected financial notices to Fine Point. Their team always replies right away with an explanation or that they are looking into it, instead of me spending an hour looking it up myself.” Additionally, since COVID-19 put a halt to regular meetings, Mara says their communication with Fine Point has continued without disruption, remarking,

“It’s really awesome to have someone else’s eyes on stuff and them be able to reassure us that we are continuously on the right track. Fine Point is consistent and we appreciate it a lot.”

From the beginning, ArteryInk chose to foster the partnership with Fine Point Consulting because they had plans to expand their creative operation and saw that Fine Point had the additional resources to do this. ArteryInk has since hired their first employee with Fine Point’s HR expertise, and set up IRA’s and 401Ks because of Fine Point’s outside connections. Through each of these experiences, Gloria and Mara agree that they both feel comfortable asking questions. “The Fine Point team is so great at being ahead of the game and we feel like everyone there is a wonderful person. We can go to any one of them to ask questions and not be made to feel like idiots, or that we should have already known the answers.