Cost Accountant

Cost  Accountant

Our client is seeking a hands-on Cost Accountant to join a growing manufacturing operation in the West Michigan area. This role is ideal for an accounting professional who thrives in a heavy manufacturing environment and enjoys partnering closely with operations, engineering, and supply chain teams to drive accurate costing, reporting, and continuous improvement initiatives. The Cost Accountant will play a critical role in maintaining standard costs, analyzing manufacturing performance, supporting month-end close activities, and improving financial visibility across plant operations.

This opportunity offers strong exposure to plant leadership, operational strategy, ERP systems, and process improvement initiatives in a dynamic production environment. Candidates with a strong foundation in standard costing, manufacturing variance analysis, and ERP-driven cost accounting processes will be especially successful in this role.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the 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
• Collaborate with Manufacturing Engineering to establish and maintain standard labor costs and routing accuracy within the ERP system
• Analyze and maintain overhead allocations by product line and production category
• Validate supplier quotes, prepare cost rollups, update cost records, and maintain costing data within the ERP system
• Review production output and evaluate actual versus expected product costs
• Support Engineering Change Orders (ECOs) and final product costing approvals
• Assist with month-end close activities, financial reporting, management reporting, and ad hoc analysis requests
• Lead or support standard cost updates and periodic cost rolls
• Analyze manufacturing variances including material, labor, overhead, purchase price variance (PPV), and manufacturing absorption
• Communicate cost drivers, operational impacts, and corrective action recommendations to leadership and cross-functional teams
• Identify opportunities to improve costing processes, reporting accuracy, internal controls, and operational efficiencies
• Support inventory counts and production floor observations as needed