WHEN to hard reset on a custom ROM?

[oldpueblo]

I tried searching, but the phrase "hard reset" just appears too many times. My question is after flashing a custom ROM, do you do the obligatory second hard reset only after you've done the initial setup (screen alignment/auto app installs) or can you just hard reset right after the flashing is done and it's sitting on the "tap to begin using device" screen? I've always gone through the entire setup and configuration and THEN done the second hard reset before considering the ROM update done, but I've never seen whether or not that's necessary. Thoughts?