Get ahead this summer: Why Q3 is your window to tackle special projects

For accounting and finance teams, the calendar runs in extremes. There’s the year-end and Q1 reporting marathon. There’s the Q4 budget and audit crunch. And then there’s summer, the rare stretch of relative calm in between. 

That calm is your best runway of the year. Here’s how to use it.

The quiet quarter is your secret weapon 

Q3 sits right between the two busiest crunches of the financial year. That’s an opportunity hiding in plain sight.

• Lower transactional volume. Fewer board meetings and lighter deal flow free up real capacity. 

• Room for deep work. Special projects need real focus. Summer is when you’ve actually got it. 

• The cost of waiting is real. Push these projects into Q4 and they collide with year-end. Tackle them now and you walk into the busy season stronger. 

The goal is doing the right work while you have the room to do it well.

Get ahead now, de-risk year-end later 

The work you finish this summer pays off when the pressure is highest. ‍

• Smoother closes. Cleaning up reconciliations and the chart of accounts now means fewer surprises in December. ‍

• Audit readiness, early. Updating documentation in Q3 turns the audit from a stressful sprint into a quick confirmation. 

• Runway for big changes. System implementations and automation need time to test and stabilize before year-end load hits. 

• Time to think. Technical accounting questions and new-standard adoption are far easier to research and agree on with auditors when there’s no deadline breathing down your neck.

The projects worth your summer 

So what should fill that window? Here are the initiatives that get deprioritized every other quarter. 

Close & process improvement 

• Tighten up the month-end close and cut redundant steps 

• Work through aged or problem balance sheet accounts 

• Rationalize the chart of accounts before next year’s budget locks it in 

• Document procedures so no single person is a point of failure

‍Technology & automation 

• Implement or get more out of your ERP 

• Automate manual reconciliations, journal entries, and reporting 

• Build self-service dashboards for real-time leadership visibility 

• Pilot where AI can take work off the team’s plate

‍Compliance, controls & audit 

• Get a head start on audit prep and PBC readiness 

• Review and remediate internal control gaps 

• Research and draft technical accounting memos 

• Refresh accounting policies

‍Strategic finance & FP&A 

• Overhaul budgeting and forecasting models before budget season 

• Sharpen cash flow forecasting and working capital analysis 

• Run product, customer, or segment profitability analysis 

• Define the KPIs leadership actually needs

‍People & capacity 

• Cross-train to kill single points of failure 

• Plan capacity for the year-end workload, before the crunch 

• Invest in skills development while the pace allows

‍The catch: capacity doesn’t magically appear 

Here’s the honest tension. Every team wants to tackle these projects. Most never do, because the same people who’d lead them are already buried in the day-to-day. 

You can’t pause payroll or the close to free up your best people. And summer’s window is short. 

That’s the gap between good intentions and finished projects.

How interim staffing bridges the gap

This is where interim staffing changes the math, turning “we’d love to, but we don’t have the bandwidth” into “it’s done.” 

• Add capacity without adding headcount. Interim pros absorb the routine work so your core team can focus on the projects that matter. 

• Flex up, then flex down. Special projects are temporary, so scale resources for the duration without a permanent commitment dragging into Q4. 

• Get specialized expertise on demand. Need someone who’s led an ERP rollout, a SOX remediation, or an ASC 842 adoption? Bring in a specialist who’s done it many times. 

• Move faster. Extra hands mean projects finish in the summer window instead of slipping into the busy season. 

• Keep the knowledge. The best interim partners document processes and train your team as they go, so the improvements stick. 

• Protect your people. Offloading surge work cuts burnout and turnover risk during an already-demanding year.

Why CX is the interim staffing solution 

CX is built for exactly this moment.

• Elite, project-ready talent. CX specializes in delivering top-tier finance and accounting professionals on an interim staffing basis.  

• Built for special projects. CX professionals are experienced in areas such as project management and financial software implementation.  

• True flexibility. CX supplements teams with resources at all levels, flexing up and down as needed, with people who take the same ownership as your full-time staff and create the bandwidth your team needs to keep growing the business. 

• More than staffing. Clients get full access to the combined CX and sister company Connor Group network. CX taps an ecosystem of system partners, law firms, audit firms, tax firms, and bankers to reach a vast network of financial leaders, with deep expertise and industry best practices. 

• Talent that fits in fast. From day one, CX brings its expertise, professional maturity, and likability to your team, building immediate camaraderie with your existing team.

As one CFO put it: “it’s nice to have plug-and-play resources like CX on speed dial.”

Make this summer count 

Q3 won’t wait. The window is open now, and it closes the moment year-end planning begins. 

The teams that come out ahead use the quiet season to fix foundations and get audit-ready, with the right people in the right seats to make it happen. 

Ready to bridge the gap? Partner with CX. Reach out at infocx@connorgp.com.