Enterprise Cost Accountant (Mid-level Leader) in La Crosse, Wisconsin at City Brewing Co
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Job Description
City Brewing Company – Who We Are
With our roots in La Crosse, WI, we are proud to be North America's largest co-packager of alcoholic beverages with four locations across the United States. Through our focuses on Safety throughout our facilities, Quality of products produced for our customers, Communication at all levels, Growth of not just our locations but also of our employees in their careers, and Performance with our ability to meet deadlines and goals for ourselves and our customers, we pride ourselves on the brand we have created and continue to grow.
Summary
The Enterprise Cost Accountant is responsible for standardizing and overseeing cost accounting practices — Bills of Materials, production Routings, and Cost Structures — across all four City Brewing locations. This role ensures costing methodology is applied consistently company-wide, enabling leadership to rely on accurate, comparable SKU-level cost and margin data across the network. The position partners with plant-level Cost Analysts, operations, procurement, and commercial leadership to maintain data integrity and support enterprise decisions on pricing, capital investment, and portfolio strategy.
Responsibilties
Cost Standardization & Governance
- Establish and maintain standardized BOM, routing, and costing structures applied consistently across all locations
- Own the enterprise standard costing methodology (materials, labor, and overhead absorption) and lead the annual standard cost-setting process company-wide
- Conduct periodic cross-site audits of BOMs, routings, and cost data to identify inconsistencies and drive corrective action
- Serve as the enterprise subject matter expert and system owner for costing modules within the ERP/MRP platform
- Develop and enforce costing policies and internal controls supporting audit readiness and inventory valuation integrity
Cost Analysis & Reporting
- Consolidate SKU-level and site-level cost and margin data into a unified enterprise view for leadership
- Analyze cross-site cost variances — labor rates, overhead absorption, yield, freight — to identify best practices and improvement opportunities
- Build and maintain enterprise dashboards and standard reporting on cost trends and margin by SKU, site, package type, and brand family
- Support corporate budgeting, forecasting, physical inventory counts, and audit requests requiring consolidated cost data
Cross-Functional & Strategic Support
- Partner with plant management, operations, procurement, and commercial leadership across all locations to ensure costing reflects operational reality
- Support cost analysis for new product development, capital projects, new site onboarding, and co-packing or contract arrangements
- Partner with the Corporate Controller and Finance leadership on internal controls related to inventory valuation and cost accounting
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in accounting, Finance, or a related field required
- 5+ years of cost accounting or manufacturing finance experience, including exposure to multi-site or enterprise-level cost responsibility;
- Experience within brewery, beverage, food & beverage, or CPG manufacturing strongly preferred
- Demonstrated experience building, standardizing, or auditing BOMs, routings, and standard costing methodology within an ERP/MRP system, ideally across multiple facilities
- Familiarity with industrial brewing process and terminology, preferred
- Strong understanding of standard costing, variance analysis, and overhead absorption methodologies
- Advanced Excel skills (pivot tables, lookups, modeling); experience with BI tools such as Power BI or Tableau, preferred
- Willingness to spend time on the production floor at multiple locations to validate that data reflects operational reality
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to translate cost details into actionable insight for non-finance stakeholders and to drive consistent practices across site teams
- Ability to travel 10% domestically during the year
City Brewing Company is an Equal Opportunity Employer and all applicants will be considered without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran, or disability status.