Senior Cost Accountant – Manufacturing

A well-established and growing manufacturer is seeking a Senior Cost Accountant to play a key role in plant financial operations, product costing, inventory accounting, and manufacturing performance analysis.

This is a hands‑on position for an accounting professional who understands how activity on the manufacturing floor translates into financial results. The Senior Cost Accountant will work closely with Accounting, Operations, Supply Chain, Engineering, and Plant Leadership to maintain accurate product costs, analyze manufacturing variances, improve inventory accuracy, and identify opportunities to improve profitability.

The ideal candidate has strong manufacturing cost‑accounting experience and enjoys working directly with operations rather than solely from a corporate accounting environment.

Cost Accounting & Manufacturing Analysis

• Maintain and improve standard costs for materials, labor, overhead, and manufactured products.
• Perform product cost roll‑ups and support new‑product costing.
• Maintain and analyze bills of material (BOMs), routings, labor standards, overhead rates, and work‑center costs
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• Material usage
• Purchase price
• Yield
• Scrap
• Volume
• Mix
• Investigate significant cost variances and partner with operations to identify root causes and corrective actions.
• Monitor product margins, manufacturing costs, labor productivity, and cost‑per‑unit trends.
• Support pricing analysis, make‑versus‑buy decisions, and operational improvement initiatives.
• Validate cost savings and productivity improvements.

• Manage accounting for raw materials, work in process (WIP), and finished goods inventory
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• Perform inventory valuation and reconciliation between production systems, subledgers, and the general ledger.
• Support and/or lead cycle counts and annual physical inventory.
• Research inventory discrepancies and recommend corrective actions.
• Analyze slow‑moving, excess, and obsolete inventory and assist with reserve calculations.
• Partner with Production, Purchasing, Planning, and Warehouse teams to improve inventory accuracy.

• Support the monthly and year‑end financial close.
• Prepare and review journal entries, accruals, reconciliations, and financial schedules.
• Prepare entries and analysis related to COGS, inventory, WIP, labor, overhead, and manufacturing variances
  .
• Prepare monthly manufacturing reports and variance explanations for management.
• Ensure manufacturing accounting activity is accurately reflected in the general ledger.
• Assist with financial statement preparation and management reporting.

• Support the annual budgeting and periodic forecasting processes.
• Develop manufacturing cost, labor, overhead, and inventory forecasts.
• Analyze actual results against budget, forecast, and prior periods.
• Identify financial risks, opportunities, and trends affecting plant performance.
• Develop models and analysis to support operational and strategic decisions.

• Serve as a financial partner to plant and operations leadership.
• Translate manufacturing performance into clear financial insights.
• Work with Operations and Engineering to evaluate production efficiency, scrap, labor utilization, yields, and manufacturing costs.
• Provide financial analysis for continuous‑improvement and cost‑reduction projects.
• Help promote greater cost awareness and financial accountability throughout the plant.

• Support financial analysis for capital expenditure requests.
• Prepare ROI, payback, and cost‑benefit analyses for capital and operational projects.
• Track capital spending against approved budgets.
• Support fixed‑asset accounting, including additions, transfers, depreciation, and disposals.

• Maintain strong internal controls over inventory, manufacturing costs, purchasing, and accounting transactions.
• Ensure compliance with GAAP and company accounting policies
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• Provide cost and inventory documentation for internal and external audits.
• Identify opportunities to strengthen accounting controls and improve processes.
• Maintain accurate and complete supporting documentation.

• Bachelor's…