Cost Accountant

Role Overview

This role provides active financial oversight across individual projects and the wider project portfolio. By tracking costs as work progresses and comparing actual, committed and forecast spending with approved budgets, the Cost Accountant helps project teams spot emerging overruns and margin pressure early enough to respond.

Key Responsibilities

• Track project expenditure throughout delivery, maintaining current records of actual and committed costs.
• Compare actual, committed and forecast costs with approved budgets, investigate variances and flag potential overruns or margin erosion.
• Estimate cost to complete and alert project managers to developing loss risks before they reach handover.
• Report on the financial performance and profitability of each project, and prepare a consolidated view of the active portfolio for management.
• Maintain project and product costing, including standard costs, and analyse material, labour, installation, procurement and overhead costs.
• Complete month-end cost reconciliations, journals and cost-of-goods-sold reporting; produce monthly cost, profitability and management reports.
• Work with Procurement, Operations and Project teams to investigate cost drivers, improve cost control and identify savings opportunities.
• Keep costing records accurate in the ERP or accounting system, support audit and financial-control requirements, and help teams understand the financial consequences of project decisions.

Requirements & Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance or a related field.
• CPA, ACCA, CMA or an equivalent professional qualification, or be working towards one.
• At least two years of relevant experience in cost accounting or project cost management.
• Experience with project or product costing, inventory reconciliations, cost allocation, variance analysis and margin monitoring.
• Proficiency with ERP or accounting systems and advanced Excel skills; Zoho experience is an advantage.
• Strong numerical accuracy, attention to detail and ability to investigate the causes of financial variances.
• Ability to turn financial analysis into practical guidance for project teams and communicate effectively with Finance, Procurement, Operations and Project stakeholders.
• A dependable, accountable approach to managing deadlines and taking ownership of assigned work.