Cost Accountant

Description

Location: City of Industry, CA (HQ)

Work Model: Onsite

Reports To: ES Controller / Senior Finance Leader

Since 1904,
Nelson Miller Group (NMG) has been a leading global provider of custom engineering and manufacturing solutions across industrial, IoT, lighting, medical, telecommunications, consumer, and aerospace & defense sectors.

We bring ideas to life through global Joint Design Manufacturing—helping customers innovate, grow, and deliver products the world can depend on.

At the heart of our culture is The Nelson Miller Group Way:
Unleash the Power of One — One Global Team / One Vision / One Commitment.

Our century-long legacy is built on a deep commitment to innovation, operational excellence, and unwavering customer satisfaction—principles strengthened by our TEAM core values:
Take Ownership
, Exceed Expectations
, Act with Integrity
, and Make an Impact
.

The Cost Accountant supports the Engineering Solutions (ES) business by maintaining accurate product and job costs, strengthening inventory controls, and translating operating activity into clear financial insight. This role partners closely with Operations, Engineering, Supply Chain, Sales, and Finance to improve cost visibility, protect margins, and support timely decision-making across ES locations.

The successful candidate will combine strong accounting discipline with a practical understanding of manufacturing. The role requires regular engagement with plant and commercial teams, thoughtful analysis of cost and margin variances, and ownership of key close, costing, and inventory processes within Epicor Kinetic.

• Maintain and validate standard costs, cost rolls, bills of material, routings, labor rates, burden rates, and overhead assumptions in Epicor Kinetic.
• Analyze actual versus standard material, labor, burden, subcontract, freight, tariff, and other landed-cost variances; identify root causes and recommend corrective actions.
• Review job performance, estimated-at-completion costs, job close activity, and cost exceptions to ensure timely and accurate financial recognition.
• Partner with Engineering and Operations to validate manufacturing assumptions, labor standards, scrap factors, yields, cycle times, and routing accuracy.
• Support cost estimates and financial review of new products, engineering changes, sourcing decisions, make-versus-buy analyses, and customer quotations.

• Reconcile inventory, work-in-process, accrued receipts, subcontract activity, purchase price variance, and related manufacturing accounts to the general ledger.
• Monitor inventory valuation, negative inventory, unissued material, backflush exceptions, obsolete and excess inventory, scrap, rework, and cycle-count adjustments.
• Participate in physical inventories and cycle-count programs, including planning, control testing, variance investigation, and reporting.
• Ensure transactions are recorded in accordance with U.S. GAAP and company policy, including appropriate capitalization of direct labor and manufacturing overhead into inventory.
• Strengthen controls over item setup, cost changes, inventory adjustments, job completion, job closing, and manufacturing-related journal entries.

• Own assigned month-end close activities, including journal entries, account reconciliations, accruals, variance analysis, and management reporting.
• Prepare monthly material margin, gross margin, purchase price variance, labor efficiency, overhead absorption, inventory, and job profitability analyses.
• Explain material financial variances versus budget, forecast, prior year, and standard using clear operational drivers.
• Support forecasts, annual budgets, cost-center planning, and development of manufacturing and gross-margin assumptions.
• Provide timely analysis of low-margin or loss-making orders, unusual transactions, and emerging cost trends.

• Serve as a trusted finance partner to ES plant leadership, Operations, Engineering, Supply Chain, Sales, and Customer Service.
• Translate cost data into…