Cost Accountant

Cost Accountant

We are working with an established engineering and manufacturing company on the search for a Cost Accountant to own product and job costing, tighten inventory controls, and turn operating activity into clear financial insight.

Location: On-site, City of Industry, CA

Pay range: $90,000 to $100,000 base salary

Employment type: Full-time

Reports to: Controller / senior finance leader

About the company

Our client is an established, multi-site engineering and manufacturing company that designs and builds custom electro-mechanical products for customers in industrial, medical, and aerospace and defense markets. They work alongside their customers from early concept through full-rate production, pairing in-house design engineering with their own manufacturing floors, so engineers here see their work go from CAD to a shipped product. The company is investing in its engineering and quality teams and building one shared way of working across its sites.

About the role

The Cost Accountant supports the company's engineering business by maintaining accurate product and job costs, strengthening inventory controls, and translating operating activity into financial insight. You will partner with Operations, Engineering, Supply Chain, Sales, and Finance to improve cost visibility, protect margins, and support timely decisions across locations.

The right person combines strong accounting discipline with a practical understanding of manufacturing. You will work regularly with plant and commercial teams, analyze cost and margin variances, and own key close, costing, and inventory processes in the company's ERP.

Responsibilities

Product, job and standard costing

· Maintain and validate standard costs, cost rolls, bills of material, routings, labor rates, burden rates, and overhead assumptions in the ERP.

· 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.

Inventory and manufacturing accounting

· 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.

Month-end close and financial analysis

· 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.

Business partnership and continuous improvement

· Serve as a trusted finance partner to plant leadership, Operations, Engineering, Supply Chain, Sales, and Customer Service.

· Translate cost data into actionable recommendations on pricing, sourcing, productivity, scrap, freight, tariffs, and manufacturing efficiency.

· Develop and improve dashboards, recurring reports, and KPIs that increase visibility into product, customer, and site profitability.

· Help standardize costing and inventory processes across locations and support ERP, master-data, and process-improvement initiatives.

· Assist with internal and external audit requests and keep clear supporting documentation for key controls and accounting conclusions.

Must-have qualifications

· Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related field.

· 3+ years of accounting experience, including meaningful exposure to cost accounting in a manufacturing environment.

· Working knowledge of standard costing, job costing, inventory accounting, overhead absorption, variance analysis, and month-end close.

· Strong Excel skills, including pivot tables, lookups, data analysis, and reconciliation of large data sets.

· Able to trace a transaction from source document through the ERP subledger to the general ledger.

· Strong attention to detail, sound judgment, and the ability to manage priorities and meet close deadlines.

· Clear written and verbal communication, and the confidence to work with both financial and operational teams.

Nice-to-have

· Experience with Epicor Kinetic or another manufacturing ERP.

· Experience in engineered products, electronics, contract manufacturing, or a related industrial environment.

· Experience supporting multiple plants, product lines, or legal entities.

· Familiarity with Power BI, SQL, business-intelligence tools, or automated reporting.

· CPA, CMA, or progress toward a professional accounting certification.

What success looks like

· An accurate, timely close with clean reconciliations and manufacturing journal entries.

· Reliable product, job, and inventory costs in the ERP.

· Faster identification and resolution of margin, inventory, and cost variances.

· Clear visibility into material margin, labor performance, overhead absorption, and job profitability.

· Stronger inventory controls, cleaner manufacturing accounts, and fewer recurring exceptions.

· A credible, responsive partnership with operating and commercial leaders.

Additional requirements

· The role operates in both office and manufacturing environments and may involve time on the production floor, physical inventory activities, and travel to other locations.

· Due to ITAR and/or CUI compliance, this position requires candidates to be a U.S. Citizen, Permanent Resident, or Protected Individual.

· Candidates being considered for hire must pass a pre-employment background check.

What we offer

· A hands-on seat at the center of costing, inventory, and margin, with real visibility across operations.

· A comprehensive benefits package: medical, dental, and vision, company-paid life and disability insurance, flexible spending accounts, and an employee assistance program.

· Paid sick leave, vacation, and company-paid holidays.

· A 401(k) with a company contribution.

It's ok if you don't check all the boxes. We hire for the capacity and the drive to learn and grow. If there is something you haven't done, but you are capable, please apply!

VoltForce does not work on a Corp-to-Corp (C2C) basis.