Why the Dreaded Summertime Slowdown is a Great Time to Switch Accountants

A couple of years back, we wrote about how switching accountants is easier than you think. The short version: change is dread-inducing, but a good team leads you through it, and most of the fear is about the unknown, not the actual work.

Here's the follow-up we didn't write then. Because there's a second thing that stops owners from switching, even once they've decided they want to: timing.

You've probably told yourself some version of this. I'll deal with it at year-end. After taxes. Once this job wraps. When things slow down.

The trouble is, in production, things don't slow down. There's always another job, another fire, another close. If you're waiting for a clean window to make a change, you'll be waiting a long time — and the thing you meant to fix back in January is still sitting there in July.

Why mid-year is actually a good time

For production, right now or mid-year are among the better times to make the move. You're not buried in year-end close or tax filings. You can see how the first half of the year actually went, which means you know what isn't working. And there's still real runway to course-correct before Q4 — enough time to get the books clean and current before the year-end crunch, instead of dragging a mess into it. Q4 is historically the busiest time of the year for production, so why not switch during a (comparative) lull?

Starting off with a new accounting team at the beginning of the year feels like a symbolic and literal fresh start, but depending on where you’re coming from, this might actually be the worst time to switch accountants. Depending on who handled your accounting the year prior, you might need a ton of cleanup to understand what happened in your business. 

Switch in December, and your new team inherits a year of cleanup at the worst possible moment. Switch now, and they've got room to do it right. 

The part that doesn't change with the calendar

Whenever you decide to make the move, what we said two years ago still holds: a good accounting team leads the transition. We take responsibility for onboarding. We know what to ask, when to ask it, how to get what we need from a previous firm, whether they're helpful or not, and when it should start to feel easy. None of that depends on what month it is. The calendar doesn't make onboarding harder — waiting does.

If you've been putting it off

Maybe you set out to fix the money side this year and it slipped. That's normal. It's never the urgent thing until it is. But you don't have to wait for some perfect, quiet moment that production never actually gives you.

If something's been nagging you about your current setup, we'd love to hear about it. And if it's the timing that's been holding you back, consider this your nudge — now's as good as it gets.