Senior Cost Accountant

Wheat Holdings operates two commercial bakeries: Stone Ground Bakery in Salt Lake City and Wheat Montana in Three Forks. We are hiring our first dedicated Senior Cost Accountant to build the costing function from the ground up.

This is not a maintenance seat. We are converting from weighted average cost to standard costing in Business Central, and the person in this role will design that system, set the standards, and then run the variance discipline that makes them mean something. If you have wanted to own product costing end to end rather than inherit someone else’s model, this is that job.

You will work directly with the CFO, both Directors of Operations, purchasing, and the plant teams. You will spend real time on the production floor.

Standard costing and BOM maintenance. Establish, review, and maintain bills of materials and standard costs for all dough recipes, packaging, and finished bread products across both plants. Run the annual standard cost roll and evaluate the cost impact of recipe, packaging, and process changes.

Purchase price variance and commodity costs. Partner with purchasing so PPV is predictable and explainable. Maintain a commodity cost watch on flour, grain, fats, and packaging, and flag SKUs to leadership when landed cost has moved enough to warrant a pricing review.

Yield and variance analysis. Track and analyze daily and weekly manufacturing variances: material yield including dough scrap and bake loss, labor efficiency, and oven and packaging downtime. Get to root cause with the operations team rather than reporting the number and moving on.

Inventory control and valuation. Oversee physical inventory counts and cycle counting for raw ingredients, WIP dough, packaging, and finished goods. Reconcile inventory balances, investigate discrepancies, and prepare obsolescence and waste reserve analyses for controller review.

Overhead allocation. Build and maintain the methodology for allocating manufacturing overhead to product lines, and keep it defensible as the product mix shifts.

Margin analysis. Analyze profitability by SKU (sliced loaves, brioche, buns) and by distribution channel. Bring management the analysis behind pricing and promotional decisions.

Month-end close. Execute plant close activities: journal entries, COGS reconciliation, variance capitalization, and general ledger updates.

Operations partnership. Work alongside the Directors of Operations on capital requests and spending control, including payback analysis on equipment investment.

1. Month 1. Learn both plants and both product lines on the floor. Document current BOMs and identify where they diverge from what is actually produced.
2. Months 2–4. Design and implement standard costing in Business Central, including the cutover plan and variance account structure.
3. Months 5–8. Stand up the weekly variance reporting cadence with operations, and deliver a defensible SKU and channel margin view.

Required

• Bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, or a related field
• 5+ years of cost accounting experience in manufacturing, with food, beverage, or CPG process manufacturing strongly preferred
• Hands-on standard costing experience in a perpetual inventory ERP: cost rolls, variance analysis, overhead absorption
• Demonstrated ownership of BOM accuracy and yield or scrap analysis in a plant environment
• Advanced Excel
• Willingness to be on the production floor and travel to Montana periodically

Preferred

• Experience implementing or converting a standard cost system, not only operating one
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central or Aptean
• CMA, or CPA with a manufacturing background
• Power BI or comparable reporting tools
• Private-equity-backed or multi-site environment

Direct access to the CFO and to operations leadership, a costing system you design rather than inherit, and visible influence on pricing and capital decisions at a company where those decisions matter. Competitive benefits, 401(k).