We'll continue to leverage our 80/20 principles as we align around our best customers, our best prospects for growth, and our critical business priorities.
Our backlog is now $186 million higher than it was at the end of last year.
Both are executing well in the challenging operating environment as they come up to speed on our 80/20 playbook.
With that, I'll turn to our market outlook on Page 7.
It impacted FMT's organic sales by 8%.
In other words, excluding the impact of Flow MD, FMT organic sales would have grown 15% instead of 7% as reported.
Q3 orders of 774 million were up 36% overall and up 28% organically.
We built 62 million of backlog in the quarter, and all three segments had strong organic performance versus last year as well as versus the third quarter of 2019.
Third-quarter sales of 712 million were up 23% overall and up 15% organically.
Excluding Flow MD, organic sales would have been up 18% overall.
Q3 gross margin expanded 50 basis points to 43.8%.
Excluding the impact of a $9.1 million pre-tax fair value inventory step-up charge related to the Airtech acquisition, adjusted gross margin was 45%, and improved sequentially.
Third-quarter operating margin was 22.6%, flat compared to prior year.
Adjusted operating margin was 24.3%, up 120 basis points compared to prior year, largely driven by our gross margin expansion and fixed cost leverage, offset with some pressure from targeted reinvestments and the dilutive impact of Airtech and ABEL acquisitions due to their intangible amortization costs.
Our Q3 effective tax rate was 23.4%, which was higher than the prior-year ETR of 14.4% due to the finalization of tax regulations enacted in the third quarter of 2020 as well as a decrease in the excess tax benefit related to share-based compensation in the current period.
Third-quarter net income was $116 million, which resulted in an earnings per share of $1.51.
Adjusted net income was $125 million, resulting in an adjusted earnings per share of $1.63, up $0.23 or 16% over prior-year adjusted EPS.
The tax rate movement I mentioned drives a $0.27 differential in earnings per share as compared to the prior-year quarter.
Said differently, our earnings per share would have expanded by $0.50 or 35% had 2021 been taxed at the 2020 rate.
Finally, free cash flow for the quarter was 142 million, up 5% compared to prior year, and was 113% of adjusted net income.
Adjusted operating income increased 39 million for the quarter compared to the prior year.
Our 15% organic growth contributed approximately 29 million, flowing through at our prior-year gross margin rate.
This reinvestment back into the business, higher variable compensation, and targeted increases in discretionary spending drive the year-over-year pressure of $15 million.
Despite the incremental spend, inflation, and supply chain-driven operational efficiencies, we still achieved a solid 37% organic flow-through.
Flow-through is then negatively impacted by the dilutive impact of acquisitions and FX, getting us to a reported flow-through of 30%.
For the fourth quarter, we are projecting adjusted earnings per share to range from $1.55 to $1.58.
We expect organic revenue growth of nine to 10% and adjusted operating margins between 23.5% and 24%.
The Q4 effective tax rate is expected to be approximately 23%.
We expect about 0.5% of top-line benefit from FX, and corporate costs in Q4 are expected to be around 19 million.
We are narrowing our full-year earnings per share guidance from a range of $6.26 to $6.36 to $6.30 to $6.33.
We are also maintaining our full-year organic growth of 11 to 12%.
We expect operating margins of approximately 24%.
We expect FX to provide 1.5% benefit to top-line results.
The full-year effective tax rate is expected to be around 23%.
Capital expenditures are anticipated to be around 65 million, in line with our previous guidance.
Free cash flow is expected to be around 105% of net income, lower versus our last guide primarily due to working capital investments.
And corporate costs are expected to be approximately $73 million for the year.
Bill and I both joined IDEX around the same time in 2008, and I've learned a great deal from him over the years.

Summary:
Third-quarter sales of 712 million were up 23% overall and up 15% organically.
Third-quarter net income was $116 million, which resulted in an earnings per share of $1.51.
Adjusted net income was $125 million, resulting in an adjusted earnings per share of $1.63, up $0.23 or 16% over prior-year adjusted EPS.
For the fourth quarter, we are projecting adjusted earnings per share to range from $1.55 to $1.58.
We are narrowing our full-year earnings per share guidance from a range of $6.26 to $6.36 to $6.30 to $6.33.