Cost Accountant

Cost Accountant | Middleville, MI
Base Salary: $75,000-85,000, plus bonus

Our client is a growing, employee-owned (ESOP) manufacturing company with a long-standing reputation for innovation, stability, and operational excellence. They design and manufacture some of the world's most high-performing, technologically advanced, and energy-efficient products that support critical infrastructure, health, safety, and sanitation needs across the globe.


While many manufacturers continue to move production offshore, this organization remains deeply committed to investing in American manufacturing, its people, and its communities. With millions of products installed worldwide and a highly tenured workforce, the company has built a culture centered on continuous improvement, long-term growth, and employee success.


This is an opportunity to join a financially strong organization that offers:

• Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP)
• Exceptionally affordable healthcare benefits
• Strong company performance and stability
• Minimal turnover and outstanding employee retention
• Collaborative, team-oriented culture
• Long-term career growth opportunities

Cost Accountant Summary
The Cost Accountant serves as the site Cost Accounting expert for a large manufacturing facility, partnering closely with Operations, Engineering, Supply Chain, and Finance leadership. This highly visible role is responsible for driving accurate product costing, supporting operational decision-making, analyzing manufacturing performance, and identifying opportunities for continuous improvement across the business.
Cost Accountant Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary Cost Accounting subject matter expert (SME) for the manufacturing facility.
• Partner with Supply Chain and Engineering teams to develop, review, and maintain standard direct material costs for budgeting and forecasting purposes.
• Collaborate with Manufacturing Engineering to establish and maintain standard labor costs while ensuring process changes and routing updates are accurately reflected within the ERP system.
• Analyze and maintain overhead allocation methodologies, monitor cost drivers, and recommend process improvements.
• Review supplier quotations, validate pricing against historical costs, prepare cost rollups, and maintain accurate costing records within the ERP system.
• Evaluate production output and analyze actual versus standard product costs to ensure costing accuracy.
• Support Engineering Change Orders (ECOs) and provide costing analysis to support approval processes.
• Lead and support annual and periodic standard cost updates, ensuring bill of materials (BOMs), labor standards, routings, and overhead rates align with current operations.
• Perform detailed analysis of manufacturing variances, including material, labor, overhead, purchase price variance (PPV), and absorption variances, while communicating key findings and corrective actions to stakeholders.
• Support month-end close activities, financial reporting, management reporting, forecasting, and ad hoc business analysis.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives related to costing, reporting, internal controls, and data integrity.
• Document processes, develop best practices, and provide training to business partners as needed.

Cost Accountant Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related discipline
• 2+ years of accounting experience within inventory-intensive or manufacturing environments.
• Strong understanding of standard costing, inventory accounting, variance analysis, and month-end close processes.
• Experience working with ERP systems such as Oracle, SAP, JD Edwards, Microsoft Dynamics, or similar platforms.
• Strong analytical, communication, and business partnership skills with the ability to work effectively across Finance and Operations
• Experience supporting Lean Manufacturing, continuous improvement initiatives, scrap reduction, yield improvement, and operational cost optimization efforts.
• Proven ability to influence cross-functional teams and drive process improvements.

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EB-1303015465