Overview

Cost Accounting Recruiters is working with a food manufacturer to place a Cost Accounting Manager over its Florida processing footprint. The business grows and processes food products, with roughly three plants across the Southeast and Midwest, each handling packaging and value-added steps. This seat covers the Florida sites, with a base in the West Palm Beach, FL area. The role carries genuine weight: leadership recently rebuilt it from a transaction-focused cost accountant watching work orders into a manager who owns standards, reporting and audit support for the full processing business.

Role depth

Standards are yours. You will build them, model them and keep them current as production shifts, while also handling work order activity, month-end close, audit support and the weekly cost reporting the plants depend on. A model already exists from the Plant Controller, so this is not a blank sheet, but the standards themselves, the reporting rhythm and the discipline underneath belong to you.

The other half of the job is reporting for the agricultural entity, where you work alongside FP&A on labor and departmental reporting rather than conventional accounting. Data is the ongoing hurdle: the business is moving off Dynamics AX onto Dynamics 365, a lot of today's work happens by hand, and the information needs cleaning before it can support standard costing. Six months in, success looks like weekly cost reporting that is accurate and trusted, with plant leaders using your figures to make operating calls.

In our words

There is no finance presence at the plants right now, so the person who thrives here is the one who puts in time with production crews and builds credibility before asking anyone to change how they work. You will have to translate cost data into plain terms for managers outside of accounting, connecting a choice made on the line to what the product ends up costing. The CFO brings in experts, gives them ownership and keeps out of the weeds, so whatever you want to improve is yours to push forward.

For a Senior Cost Accountant who has created and maintained standards and now wants cost ownership spanning several sites, this is a genuine promotion. You do not need supervisory experience. Food background counts for more, since seasonal cycles and raw agricultural cost flows move differently than discrete manufacturing, and these operations run flat out in season then shut down for the summer.

Work culture

By the hiring team's own account, this is a healthy, collaborative group, and the business overall is on a growth path.

Software and ERP

The ERP today is Microsoft Dynamics AX, with a move underway to Dynamics 365 and Fabric. DAX or D365 exposure is preferred, and strong Excel skills are assumed.

Travel and remote

Not much travel here. Based in the West Palm Beach area, you would be at the second processing site three days weekly through the season and two days during the quieter summer stretch, spending remaining days at the primary office. Trips to the out-of-state plants are rare at most.

Benefits

The company will look at candidates living outside the area and is willing to discuss relocation.

Location

The base sits in Palm Beach County, roughly thirty minutes from the coast and West Palm Beach, with well-regarded schools and a straightforward drive toward the Fort Lauderdale and Miami metros. The second site lies inland near the southern edge of Lake Okeechobee, in the middle of the state's growing belt, about 45 minutes away. Florida collects no state income tax.