Sr. Cost Accountant

POSITION: Senior Cost Accountant

LOCATION: Athens, Georgia

description

Mativ is a global leader in specialty materials headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia. The Company offers a wide range of critical components and engineered solutions that connect, protect, and purify our world.

POSITION SUMMARY

We are seeking a proactive, detail-oriented Senior Cost Accountant to join our dynamic team at our Athens, GA manufacturing facility. In this role, you will play a critical part in driving plant performance through accurate product costing, inventory management, and insightful operational analysis. You’ll collaborate closely with operations, supply chain, and finance teams to support strategic decision-making, improve cost structures, and increase overall efficiency.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Lead standard cost development and maintenance for the plant, partnering with Operations to ensure accuracy of bills of material (BOMs), routings, and machine/labor rates.
• Support month-end close activities related to inventory and manufacturing costs, including journal entries, job order reviews, and reconciliation of cost variances.
• Deliver meaningful cost and operational analysis to identify cost drivers, enhance margins, and support data-driven decision-making.
• Lead budget and forecast cycles, providing detailed insights into manufacturing costs, volume trends, and resource utilization.
• Prepare and distribute monthly reporting packages, highlighting key performance indicators (KPIs), variance explanations, and cost efficiency metrics for use in plant leadership reviews.
• Ensure inventory integrity and valuation accuracy, partnering with Plant Leadership to review inventory reserves and ensure compliance with company procedures.
• Support cost reduction, performing ROI and cost-benefit analyses and tracking progress against savings goals.
• Drive continuous improvement, highlighting processes we can automate, streamline, and simplify both for the Athens site but also across the finance organization..
• Participate in broader accounting activities such as balance sheet reconciliations, intercompany transactions, and general ledger entries as part of the business unit finance team.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related field.
• 2–5 years of cost accounting experience in a manufacturing or industrial environment.
• Strong working knowledge of standard costing, job costing, and inventory valuation methods.
• Proven experience with ERP systems (Infor, SAP, Oracle, or similar).
• Advanced Excel proficiency (e.g., XLOOKUP, SUMIFS, PivotTables, charts, and dashboards).
• Demonstrated ability to analyze complex data and translate it into actionable insights.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to explain financial concepts to non-financial audiences.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Experience supporting lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, or continuous improvement initiatives.
• Working knowledge of cost modeling, variance analysis, and performance benchmarking.
• Exposure to budgeting, forecasting, and capital expenditure planning.
• Ability to work autonomously without direct onsite supervision (as the direct manager may be at another location)

KEY COMPETENCIES

• Strong attention to detail and data accuracy.
• High sense of urgency and ability to meet tight deadlines in a fast-paced environment.
• Collaborative mindset with the ability to work cross-functionally across operations, supply chain, and finance.
• Commitment to personal safety leadership and support of a culture where safety is a core value in every decision.