Assistant Controller

Company Description

Job Description

The Assistant Controller supports the Controller and local business unit leadership by delivering accurate reporting, actionable analysis, inventory controls, and cost management insight that improve financial performance and operational decision-making.

This role serves as a key analytical partner to finance, operations, supply chain, and site leadership, helping translate manufacturing activity into clear financial understanding. The Assistant Controller will support budgeting, forecasting, monthly close, variance analysis, inventory reporting, standard cost maintenance, margin analysis, and business performance reviews.

The ideal candidate is highly analytical, detail-oriented, curious, and comfortable working closely with both financial and operational data. This role is well-suited for someone who enjoys building reports, identifying trends, improving processes, and helping business leaders understand not just what happened, but why it happened and what actions should come next.

• Prepare and analyze daily, weekly, and monthly financial and operational reports that support business unit performance management.
• Support the monthly close process through journal entry preparation, account reconciliations, variance analysis, accrual support, and financial reporting.
• Analyze manufacturing costs, including material, labor, overhead, freight, scrap, rework, yield, productivity, and absorption variances.
• Support standard cost development, cost roll-ups, item cost maintenance, and ERP cost updates under the direction of the Controller.
• Monitor inventory balances, cycle count results, inventory adjustments, obsolete and slow-moving inventory, reserve requirements, and inventory valuation.
• Partner with operations and supply chain to strengthen inventory controls, improve transaction accuracy, and identify root causes of inventory variances.
• Prepare margin analysis by customer, product, product family, channel, or business segment to support pricing, mix, and profitability decisions.
• Develop dashboards and reporting tools that provide timely insight into sales, gross margin, operating expenses, inventory, working capital, and operational KPIs.
• Support budgeting and forecasting processes by gathering inputs, analyzing trends, preparing schedules, and developing financial models.
• Assist with capital spending analysis, including project tracking, ROI calculations, payback analysis, and post-completion reviews.
• Research and explain key financial variances to budget, forecast, prior year, and prior period results.
• Support cash flow and working capital analysis, including inventory, receivables, payables, and operational drivers.
• Partner with shared services, as needed, to research AR, AP, payroll, cash application, and transactional issues impacting business unit reporting or performance.
• Assist with internal and external audit requests, including documentation, account support, inventory testing, and control-related analysis.
• Identify reporting gaps, process inefficiencies, and data integrity issues, and recommend improvements to enhance accuracy, speed, and usefulness of financial information.
• Become a strong user of Epicor and other reporting systems, with the ability to retrieve, validate, analyze, and present data without heavy reliance on IT.
• Prepare ad hoc analysis, special projects, and business case support for the Controller, General Manager, and local leadership team.
• Support a culture of safety, accountability, continuous improvement, and financial discipline.

Qualifications

• Strong financial analysis, business analytics, reporting, and problem-solving skills.
• Solid understanding of manufacturing finance, cost accounting, inventory accounting, standard costing, and variance analysis.
• Ability to analyze large data sets, identify trends, explain variances, and turn data into practical business recommendations.
• Strong Excel skills, including formulas, pivot tables, lookups, data modeling, and report automation.
• Experience developing dashboards, reports, financial models, and KPI tracking tools.
• Strong attention to detail with the ability to balance accuracy, deadlines, and changing business priorities.
• Effective communication skills, with the ability to explain financial results clearly to both finance and non-finance audiences.
• Ability to collaborate with operations, supply chain, shared services, and local leadership teams.
• Strong systems aptitude, with the ability to retrieve and validate data from ERP and reporting systems.
• Continuous improvement mindset with a desire to simplify processes, improve controls, and make reporting more useful.
• High level of ownership, curiosity, and accountability.

Education & Experience Preferred

• Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, Business Administration, Economics, or related field required.
• Minimum of 3-5 years of progressive financial analysis, cost accounting, manufacturing finance, or related experience preferred.
• Manufacturing experience strongly preferred.
• Experience with inventory controls, standard costing, cost management, and variance analysis preferred.
• Experience with Epicor or similar ERP system a plus.
• Advanced Excel skills required.
• Experience with Power BI, Tableau, SQL, or other business intelligence tools a plus.
• CPA, CMA, MBA, or other relevant certification a plus.

Additional Information

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

We believe that different perspectives and backgrounds are what make a company flourish. All qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment regardless of color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, economic status, disability, age, or any other legally protected characteristics. We are proud to be an inclusive company with values grounded in equality and ethics, where we celebrate, support, and embrace diversity.

At no time during the hiring process will Smiths Group, nor any of our recruitment partners ever request payment to enable participation - including, but not limited to, interviews or testing. Avoid fraudulent requests by applying jobs directly through our career's website (Careers - Smiths Group plc)