So, please do tell us......what is the date that the company begin to prepare 3Q financials? You must know the actual day if you know they could have began earlier.
Saying starting early would "plenty of time to get this '3rd-party' information" really shows a misunderstanding for businesses that have other parties in their business model. There could literally be hundreds of reasons a 3rd party verification could be delayed. Anyone who owns a business that interacts with 3rd parties knows this, those who pretend don't.