Position SummaryHuFriedyGroup is looking for a
Senior Cost Accountant to serve as a key finance partner to our Operations and Plant leadership teams. This role goes beyond traditional accounting and reporting. You'll help leaders understand plant performance, identify cost and productivity opportunities, and turn financial data into actionable insights.
The Senior Cost Accountant will have responsibility for standard costing, inventory valuation, manufacturing variance analysis, plant performance reporting, and financial controls. You'll also play an important role in budgeting, capital investments, cost-reduction initiatives, and continuous improvement across our manufacturing operations.
Location: Northbrook, IL
What You'll Do- Maintain and analyze standard costs, ensuring accurate costing and inventory valuation.
- Co-own the annual cost roll process, including cost pools, rates, simulations, and analysis of year-over-year changes.
- Analyze manufacturing performance, including absorption, spending, efficiency, and other production variances.
- Partner directly with Plant Managers and Operations leaders to provide meaningful financial analysis and actionable business insights.
- Support daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly business and plant performance reporting.
- Track plant productivity and cost-savings initiatives against budget.
- Maintain strong inventory controls, including cycle counts, physical inventory, inventory adjustments, and review of slow-moving and obsolete inventory.
- Support CAPEX requests, including development of business cases and post-investment financial follow-up.
- Manage fixed assets and capital expenditures.
- Support month-end closing activities, including journal entries, balance sheet reconciliations, analysis, and reporting.
- Participate in special projects such as ERP/SAP conversions, SKU initiatives, process improvement, and cost-reduction programs.
What You'll Bring- Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related field.
- 4+ years of related finance/accounting experience, including hands-on standard costing and variance analysis.
- Experience partnering with Operations or manufacturing leaders and the ability to communicate and challenge financial performance constructively.
- Experience working with ERP systems; SAP experience is preferred.
- Demonstrated experience supporting process-improvement and cost-savings initiatives.
- Advanced Microsoft Excel skills.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities.
- Strong attention to detail with excellent organizational and communication skills.
- Ability to travel to and work closely with manufacturing and operations teams.
Preferred Experience- 3+ years of experience within a manufacturing environment.
- 2+ years of direct cost accounting experience.
- SAP experience.
What Will Make You SuccessfulYou'll do well in this role if you're comfortable getting beyond the numbers and working directly with the business. We're looking for someone who can understand what is driving plant performance, identify opportunities or risks, and communicate those insights in a way that helps Operations make better decisions. The right person will combine strong cost-accounting fundamentals with curiosity, business partnership, and a continuous-improvement mindset.
Compensation & BenefitsBase Salary: $120,000-$135,000 annually, based on experience, qualifications, and role level. Our comprehensive benefits package includes
medical, dental and vision options, 401(k), life insurance, tuition reimbursement, paid family leave, competitive PTO, annual bonus opportunities, and more. 
