Job Title: Performance Accounting Manager
Location: Corporate - Gainesville, GA - Valley, AL
Department: Controllership
Reports To: Senior Manager, Performance Accounting
Direct Reports: 1
Travel: Up to 30%
Normal Work Schedule: The typical working hours are 7:30 am to 4:00 pm with a 30-minute lunch
Job Summary
The Performance Accounting Manager is the on-site finance business partner for an assigned group of plants. This role spends most of its time with plant leaders and on the production floor, understands what is driving cost and yield, challenges Operations on results, and helps drive corrective actions and savings. It owns plant-level inventory accuracy and cost visibility, connecting what happens on the floor to what shows up in the P&L.
Required Qualifications
• Bachelor's degree in accounting (any other field? Finance or Business Administration)
• 5+ years of plant, cost or manufacturing accounting experience.
• 1+ years of experience supervising or leading others.
• Working knowledge of actual costing, manufacturing cost analysis, WIP and inventory accounting.
• Hands-on plant floor experience, able to read production reports, bill of materials and routings.
• ERP experience with manufacturing and costing modules.
• Advanced Excel skills and experience building operations reports from large data sets.
Preferred Qualifications
• Experience in food manufacturing, CPG or distribution, including yield, giveaway and shelf-life issues.
• Experience with BI tools, manufacturing execution or production reporting systems and automation or AI tools
• Lean, Six Sigma or continuous improvement exposure.
Key Responsibilities
NOTE: This description is not intended to be all-inclusive. An employee may perform other related duties to meet the organization's ongoing needs; these duties are considered marginal.
Plant business partnership
• Work alongside plant managers and department heads daily; attend production and shift meetings and walk the floor regularly.
• Understand the drivers behind cost and yield on each line (downtime, changeovers, giveaway, rework, staffing, ingredient usage) and translate them into dollars.
• Challenge Operations when results miss expectations, and push for clear owners, actions, and dates.
• Bring issues forward while they can still be fixed, rather than explaining them after the month closes.
Cost improvement and savings
• Work with plant managers, engineering, and continuous improvement teams to identify and quantify savings in yield, waste, labor, and energy.
• Track corrective actions and cost-saving projects from estimate to realized savings.
• Prepare financial analysis for plant capital requests and post-completion reviews.
• Provide plant input to budgets and annual cost targets.
Plant cost visibility
• Deliver weekly and monthly plant performance scorecards: cost per pound or case, yield, scrap, waste, giveaway, labor efficiency, and overhead, based on actual costs.
• Analyze cost movements by line, product, and shift against budget, prior periods, and targets; separate volume, mix, price, and efficiency drivers.
• Apply the standard KPI definitions used across all plants, and automate recurring reports so time goes to analysis and action.
Plant close and inventory accuracy
• Complete plant close activities: production reporting cut-off, labor and overhead accruals, WIP valuation, and plant spending review.
• Prepare and review plant journal entries and account reconciliations.
• Coordinate cycle counts and physical inventories at assigned plants; investigate count variances and fix root causes.
• Monitor production reporting and inventory transactions (receipts, consumption, scrap, transfers) for accuracy, and identify slow-moving, short-dated, and on-hold inventory for the reserve review.
Team leadership and continuous improvement
• Supervise, train, and develop plant cost accountants as business partners to their operating teams.
• Follow and enforce standard procedures, controls, and review practices.
• Look for ways to simplify plant accounting and reporting through process changes, automation, and practical use of AI tools.
Competencies
• Plant-floor credibility: comfortable on the production floor and fluent in operations language.
• Business partnership: engages early and stays involved until issues are fixed.
• Constructive challenge: questions results and gets plant leaders to act.
• Analytical rigor: traces cost movements to specific lines, products, and shifts.
• Clear communication: turns cost data into simple, actionable messages.
• Supervision: trains and supports plant cost accountants.
How success is measured
• Savings: Savings identified vs realized, corrective actions closed on time.
• Plant performance: Yield, waste, giveaway and cost-per-unit improvement.
• Cost visibility: Scorecards delivered on scheduled and accurate, cost movements explained.
• Plant Close: Plant results delivered on the close calendar, post-close adjustments.
• Inventory: Cycle count accuracy, physical-to-book adjustments.
Work Environment
• This job is carried out in a professional office setting and involves using standard office equipment like laptops, desk phones, and smartphones. Regular visits to production facilities may also be required. During those visits, the employee is occasionally exposed to cold and/or humid conditions. The employee occasionally works near moving mechanical parts. The employee is occasionally exposed to fumes or airborne particles, cold temperatures, electrical shock and vibration risks. The noise level in the work environment is moderate.
Physical Demands
• Employees must be able to stand, walk, or sit; use their hands for tasks; reach with their arms; and communicate verbally. Occasional lifting or moving objects is necessary, along with close, distance, color vision, depth perception, and the ability to adjust focus.
The applicant who fills this position will be eligible for the following:
• Incentive Pay: This position is eligible for the Company's bonus plan, with amounts varying based on program terms.
• Vacation / Sick days
• Medical, Dental, Vision Benefits
• Telemedicine
• Onsite Clinic - Tyler and Valley
• 401 (k) with company match
• STD and LTD
• Life insurance & other voluntary benefits
• Career Development: We support professional growth through continuous learning and development opportunities.
