Cost Accounting Analyst

Cost Accounting Analyst

Location: Irvine, CA (On-site)

Type: Contract (approx. 3–4 months), 40 hrs/week

Department: Accounting / Manufacturing Finance

Job Summary

The Cost Accountant supports the cost accounting team with day-to-day manufacturing finance activities, including inventory and cost-of-goods analysis, variance reporting, and month-end close support. This role has an emphasis on job costing, labor/overhead support, standard cost maintenance assistance, and inventory reconciliations, while helping ensure key inventory/manufacturing controls are completed accurately and on time.

Duties & Responsibilities

• Assist with month-end close activities for cost accounting, including support for journal entries and account reconciliations.
• Help prepare and analyze product costs, manufacturing variances, and other COGS-related reporting.
• Support standard cost updates and maintain cost data (BOM/routings and related cost inputs) in partnership with operations/manufacturing teams.
• Assist with labor and overhead rate support (basic calculations, data pulls, trend reporting).
• Support inventory reconciliations (including intercompany inventory/profit where applicable).
• Assist with cycle counts and physical inventories (coordination support, variance research, documentation).
• Support warranty and E&O (excess & obsolete) analysis and reporting.
• Pull and analyze data from the ERP/accounting system to support cost-of-goods reporting and ad hoc requests.
• Help maintain documentation for inventory/manufacturing SOX controls and support audit requests as needed.
• Participate in process improvement efforts to streamline close and reporting activities.
• Perform other projects as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications

• 4+ years of accounting experience with exposure to cost accounting (manufacturing environment strongly preferred).
• Strong Excel skills (pivot tables, lookups; comfort working with large data sets).
• Working knowledge of inventory, COGS, and basic variance analysis concepts.
• High attention to detail; ability to manage multiple priorities and deadlines.
• Strong written and verbal communication; comfortable partnering with operations/manufacturing stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in a high-volume manufacturing environment.
• Exposure to standard costing, BOM/routings, or labor/overhead concepts.
• Experience with ERP systems (any major ERP is fine—SAP/Oracle/NetSuite/etc.).
• Experience in a medical device / regulated / lot-controlled environment.
• Spanish (written/spoken) a plus.

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, or Business (or equivalent experience).