Business Partner Operational Finance Manager

Outform; Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Outform in Chicago seeks a Business Partner - Operational Finance Manager to act as an operational finance partner, focused on monitoring, reporting, and optimizing project and customer-level profitability. You will partner with operations, production, and procurement to ensure purchasing and execution align with budgets and timelines.

By delivering actionable insights, you will help drive margin protection and commercial success for complex, custom-built manufacturing projects.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required in Accounting/Finance or related field.
• 3–5 years of FP&A, business partnering, or operational finance experience, preferably in bespoke manufacturing or project-based environments.
• Proven ability in project profitability analysis and forecasting.

Responsibilities

• Prepare detailed income statements at project and customer levels, comparing actuals to estimates.
• Perform variance analysis to explain deviations in revenue, cost, and margin and advise project managers.
• Provide financial inputs for project reviews, change orders, and customer negotiations.
• Contribute to rolling project forecasts, budgets, and month-end close with cost and margin projections.

Skills

Financial analysis

Forecasting

Variance analysis

ERP systems

Excel

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in Accounting/Finance

Tools

SAP ERP

Microsoft Excel

Power BI

SQL

Job description

Position Summary:

The Business Partner - Operational Finance Manager is a pivotal role within our bespoke, project-based manufacturing business. Acting as an operationally focused finance partner and trusted advisor, you will be responsible for monitoring, reporting, and optimizing project and customer-level profitability.

You will work closely with operations, production, and procurement teams to ensure that purchasing and execution are aligned with budgets and timelines. By delivering clear, actionable insights, you will help drive margin protection and commercial success for complex, custom-built manufacturing projects.

Key Responsibilities:

Project Profitability Monitoring and Execution

• Prepare detailed income statements at project and customer levels, analyzing actual performance against original and revised estimates.
• Perform variance analysis to explain deviations in revenue, cost, and margin, highlighting risks and recommending corrective actions to project managers and senior stakeholders.
• Partner with the accounting team by providing project progress and commercial-terms inputs that support timely and accurate revenue recognition.
• Calculate and review monthly project percentage-of-completion metrics, partnering with GL team to convert operational project analysis into timely and accurate financial data for reporting purposes.

Purchasing & Execution Follow-Up

• Monitor purchasing and material flow for each project, working closely with procurement to track commitments and deliveries against project plans.
• Follow up with production and project teams to ensure that execution milestones are met in line with budgets and timelines; elevate issues proactively.
• Provide financial input to project reviews, change orders, and customer negotiations where required.

Reporting & Analysis

• Develop and deliver regular reporting packages, including detailed customer and project income statements and estimate-to-actual performance comparisons.
• Analyze estimate-to-actual variances at key project milestones and upon completion to ensure financial lessons are captured and applied to future bids and project planning.
• Contribute to rolling project forecasts, budget updates, and month-end close processes with reliable cost and margin projections.

Business Partnering & Continuous Improvement

• Act as a key finance contact for project managers, production leads, and procurement, building trusted relationships to influence decision-making with robust financial insight.
• Lead regular financial reviews with project teams to drive accountability and embed a culture of proactive cost management.
• Support root cause analysis of cost overruns and contribute to lessons learned to drive process improvement.
• Champion best practices in cost control and operational finance across the organization.

Required Qualifications:

• Education: Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, Business Administration, or a related field.
• Experience: Minimum 3-5 years in FP&A, business partnering, or operational finance, ideally within bespoke or custom manufacturing, engineering, or project-based production environments.
• Strong familiarity with project profitability analysis and forecasting is essential.

Skills & Competencies

• Technical Expertise: Solid understanding of financial analysis, forecasting, margin and variance analysis, and project income statement analysis; proficient with ERP systems and advanced Excel.
• Analytical Skills: Strong ability to analyze detailed financial and operational data, identify trends, and provide practical recommendations. High level of numeracy and analytical capability; able to interpret variances and provide clear, actionable insights.
• Communication & Partnering: Excellent communication skills, able to influence and support operational teams and present financial data in a clear, business-friendly way.
• Proactive & Organized: Self-starter with a high level of initiative; able to manage multiple projects, deadlines, and stakeholders simultaneously.
• Collaboration: Team-oriented, with a commitment to fostering effective working relationships across departments.

Characteristics:

• Excellent communication, problem-solving and stakeholder management skillsets
• Strategic and innovative thinker, excelling with a high degree of autonomy in entrepreneurial environments.
• Great communicator who can distill powerful messages that resonate with clients.
• Proactive and able to command respect through intelligence, hard work, and persistence.
• Problem-solver, with a consistent track record of flawless project execution.
• Personal passion and fervor for utilizing enabling technologies.
• Strong organizational skills, and the ability to adhere to deadlines.
• Strong interpersonal skills, with the ability to drive decision-making.
• Continuous and thoughtful listener, able to learn from clients and leverage input.
• Strong personal work ethic focused on high priority issues; action and results oriented.

#LI-Hybrid