Cost Accountant

Amadora Artisan Ice Cream; Chennai District; On-site; INR 600,000 - 900,000; Full time

Job summary

Amadora Artisan Ice Cream is seeking a Cost Accounting Associate to own costing accuracy for all SKUs, track consumption, and provide timely margin insights. You will work hands-on in a manufacturing setting and collaborate with production and finance to safeguard profitability.

Responsibilities include developing standard costings, performing variance analysis, and supporting inventory control and month-end close. This role is on-site in Chennai and reports to the Head of Accounts & Finance.

Qualifications

• 2–4 years of cost accounting experience in manufacturing.
• Experience with GST compliance and reporting.
• Experience with cost control and standard costing.

Responsibilities

• Build and revise standard costings for SKUs including raw materials, packaging, labour and overheads.
• Track actual vs standard consumption and investigate variances.
• Maintain inventory valuation for materials, WIP and finished goods.
• Reconcile stock counts and investigate discrepancies.
• Prepare monthly cost reports and support month-end close.
• Support franchise pricing and supplier cost inputs.

Skills

Advanced Excel

GST knowledge

Tally

ERP experience

Variance analysis

Inventory valuation

Detail-oriented

Cross-functional comms

Education

B.Com / M.Com / MBA (Finance), CMA

Tools

Tally

Petpooja

POS/inventory systems

ERP systems

Job description

Reports To: Head of Accounts & Finance

Employment Type: Full-time, on-site

Amadora is a premium artisanal ice cream brand founded in Chennai in 2011. Everything we sell is made from scratch at our Velachery central kitchen — no premixes, no shortcuts — and distributed through a network of franchise and company-owned stores across Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. Our range spans ice creams, ice cream cakes, bars and sandwiches, baked goods, and sauces and toppings. As we scale, disciplined cost control is what protects both our margins and our commitment to quality ingredients.

Role Purpose

The Cost Accounting Associate owns the numbers behind what we make. You will build and maintain accurate recipe-level costings, track actual versus standard consumption across production and stores, investigate variances, and give the leadership team a clear, timely view of where margin is being made and lost. This is a hands-on role suited to someone who enjoys getting into the detail of a manufacturing operation rather than working only from summary reports.

Key Responsibilities

Product & Recipe Costing

• Build, maintain and periodically revise standard costings for every SKU — ice creams, cakes, bars, sandwiches, baked goods, sauces and toppings — covering raw material, packaging, direct labour and applicable overheads.
• Update costings whenever ingredient prices, recipes, batch sizes or pack formats change, and flag the margin impact to the Managing Director and Head of Finance.
• Cost new products during development and advise on pricing feasibility before launch.

Variance & Consumption Analysis

• Reconcile actual raw material consumption against standard (BOM) consumption for each production batch and investigate material variances.
• Analyse yield, wastage, spillage and rework at the central kitchen, and quantify the cost impact.
• Track store-level consumption and wastage from Petpooja POS and stock data; highlight outliers by store.

Inventory & Valuation

• Maintain accurate inventory valuation for raw materials, packaging, WIP and finished goods.
• Participate in and reconcile periodic physical stock counts at the central kitchen and stores; investigate and document discrepancies.
• Monitor slow-moving, near-expiry and obsolete stock and recommend action.

Reporting & Month-End

• Prepare monthly cost reports: gross margin by SKU and by category, material cost as a percentage of sales, wastage summary, and variance commentary.
• Support month-end close with cost-of-goods-sold workings, consumption journals, accruals and provisions.
• Prepare costing inputs for franchise rate cards, B2B and bulk pricing, and periodic price revisions.
• Track ingredient and packaging price movements; maintain a purchase price variance log.
• Verify vendor invoices against approved rates and purchase orders; escalated discrepancies.
• Support the supply chain team with cost inputs for vendor negotiations and alternate sourcing decisions.

Process & Controls

• Strengthen documentation and controls around material issue, batch recording and stock movement.
• Improve the accuracy and automation of costing and consumption workbooks.
• Support statutory audit, internal audit and GST-related data requirements as they relate to inventory and cost.

Qualifications & Competencies

• B.Com / M.Com / MBA (Finance), or CMA (ICWA) Inter / qualified.
• 2–4 years of experience in cost accounting, preferably in food manufacturing, FMCG, QSR, bakery, dairy or a comparable production environment.
• Strong working knowledge of standard costing, BOM-based costing, variance analysis and inventory valuation.
• Advanced Excel — pivot tables, lookups, conditional logic, and comfort building and maintaining structured workbooks.
• Working knowledge of Tally and POS/inventory systems (Petpooja experience is an advantage).
• Sound understanding of GST as it applies to purchases, stock transfers and inter-state movement.
• Exposure to multi-location or franchise operations.
• Familiarity with cold chain, perishables or shelf-life-driven inventory.
• Experience working with ERP implementations or inventory system migrations.

Personal Attributes

• Precise and detail-oriented, with genuine discipline around reconciliation and documentation.
• Willing to go to the shop floor — the kitchen, the cold room, the store — rather than rely only on system reports.
• Able to explain financial findings clearly to production, supply chain and store teams who are not from a finance background.
• Self-directed, deadline-reliable, and comfortable in a fast-moving owner-led business.

What Success Looks Like (First 12 Months)

• Every active SKU has a current, validated standard costing, refreshed on a defined cycle, with recipe or price changes reflected within a set turnaround.
• A monthly variance pack — actual versus standard material consumption, by product group and by location — is delivered on a fixed date with written commentary the leadership team acts on.
• Central kitchen wastage and yield loss are measured reliably for the first time, with a baseline established and a demonstrable reduction against it.
• Physical stock counts at the kitchen and stores reconcile to book within an agreed tolerance, with discrepancies investigated and root-caused rather than simply written off.
• Gross margin by SKU and by category is visible monthly, and at least one pricing, recipe or sourcing decision has been made on the strength of that analysis.
• Costing and consumption workbooks are documented and streamlined to the point that the monthly cycle runs faster and with less manual rework than at the start of the year.