Manufacturing Company Estimator

Ameristar Manufacturing is seeking a highly analytical Manufacturing Cost Accountant / ERP Analyst to become the day-to-day owner of our manufacturing costing systems, inventory accuracy, and ERP reporting.
This position is responsible for ensuring every manufacturing order is accurately costed before it leaves our facility. Rather than simply reporting financial results after month-end, this role will proactively identify costing, inventory, and profitability issues in real time, investigate root causes, and work directly with production, engineering, purchasing, scheduling, estimating, warehouse personnel, and accounting to resolve issues before they impact profitability.
The successful candidate will become one of Ameristar's ERP system experts, developing dashboards, reports, and automated tools that provide real-time visibility into manufacturing performance and job profitability. This role requires someone who enjoys solving problems, understands manufacturing operations, and wants to make a measurable impact on the financial success of the organization.
This position offers an outstanding opportunity for someone with manufacturing cost accounting experience who is eager to expand their technical knowledge, embrace new ERP technology, and become an integral part of a growing manufacturing company.
Review completed and in-process manufacturing jobs throughout the day.
Verify material, labor, outside processing, and overhead have been accurately allocated to each manufacturing order.
Investigate costing discrepancies and coordinate corrections with production, engineering, purchasing, scheduling, and accounting.
Resolve costing issues before customer shipments whenever possible.
Assist in identifying recurring costing issues and recommend long-term process improvements.
Live Manufacturing Cost Monitoring
Develop and maintain tools that provide real-time visibility into manufacturing profitability.
Develop exception reports identifying jobs requiring immediate attention.
Monitor manufacturing variances throughout production instead of waiting until month-end.
Material allocation errors
Inventory transaction issues
Work directly with operations to resolve issues before orders ship.

ERP Systems & Process Improvement
Create automated reports and exception monitoring.
Improve visibility into manufacturing costs.
Identify opportunities to automate accounting and operational processes.
Continually seek ways to leverage technology to simplify manufacturing accounting.
Strong computer aptitude and ERP experience are highly desirable.
Inventory Costing & Inventory Accuracy
Serve as a key resource in maintaining the integrity of Ameristar's inventory and costing system by ensuring inventory transactions accurately reflect manufacturing activity.
Monitor inventory valuation and investigate inventory cost discrepancies.
Review inventory adjustments to ensure they are properly documented, approved, and accurately recorded.
Identify and resolve inventory transaction errors involving receipts, issues, transfers, returns, and production reporting.
Assist with cycle count programs and annual physical inventories while analyzing recurring inventory variances.
Partner with production, purchasing, and warehouse personnel to improve inventory accuracy and transaction discipline.
Ensure purchased materials, outside processing, and manufactured components are properly costed before being issued to production.
Review Bills of Material (BOMs), routings, and inventory master data for costing accuracy and recommend corrections when needed.
Develop ERP dashboards and exception reports that proactively identify inventory and costing issues before they impact production or financial reporting.
Work closely with accounting to ensure inventory valuation accurately supports monthly financial statements while minimizing month-end adjustments.
Manufacturing Cost Analysis
Analyze manufacturing performance through detailed financial and operational analysis.
Analyze gross margin by customer, product family, department, and manufacturing process.
Review labor utilization and manufacturing efficiency.
Monitor material variances, scrap, rework, and setup efficiency.
Analyze machine utilization and operational performance.
Assist leadership in understanding manufacturing financial performance.
Support continuous improvement initiatives that reduce manufacturing costs.
Analyze historical manufacturing costs to improve future quotations.
Support continuous refinement of estimating models to reflect actual manufacturing performance.
Customer Profitability & Strategic Pricing
Provide financial analysis that supports long-term business growth.
Analyze profitability by customer.
Evaluate pricing trends and customer performance.
Assist leadership with customer segmentation.
Identify customers, products, or processes requiring pricing changes.
Provide financial analysis supporting strategic business decisions.
Production Collaboration
Work directly with production teams to improve financial awareness throughout the organization.
Help supervisors understand job costing.
Explain how daily manufacturing decisions impact profitability.
Review costing discrepancies with production personnel.
Improve inventory transaction accuracy.
Build accountability around manufacturing cost performance.
Foster a culture where financial awareness becomes part of daily operations.
Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, Manufacturing, Business, or related field preferred.
Manufacturing accounting, cost accounting, or manufacturing operations experience preferred.
Strong understanding of manufacturing processes and job costing.
Strong computer aptitude with advanced Excel skills.
Ability to quickly learn new software systems.
Comfortable working directly with production personnel and cross-functional teams.
Equivalent manufacturing experience with strong ERP and analytical capabilities will also be considered.
Passionate about manufacturing.
Comfortable digging into data to solve problems.
Become Ameristar's subject matter expert for manufacturing costing and ERP financial reporting.
Develop live dashboards providing real-time visibility into manufacturing profitability.
Significantly reduce costing errors before customer shipments.
Improve inventory accuracy and costing integrity throughout the ERP system.
Establish proactive monitoring that identifies issues before they become month-end surprises.
Improve estimating accuracy through better cost analysis.
Increase leadership's confidence in job profitability and customer margin reporting.
Help production teams better understand the financial impact of their daily decisions.