Manufacturing FP&A Lead — Driver-Based Forecasting & Growth

The COATS Company; La Vergne (TN); On-site; USD 110,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

The COATS Company is seeking a Senior FP&A Analyst in La Vergne, TN to partner with operations, supply chain, and executive leadership. Build driver-based forecasts, analyze cost variances, and present findings to senior leaders on a regular cadence.

You will own planning cycles, translate operational activity into financial insight, and continuously improve forecasting, budgeting, and reporting processes across finance, operations, and commercial teams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or a related field.
• 7+ years of progressive FP&A, corporate finance, or cost/financial analysis experience.
• Direct experience in light manufacturing (automotive aftermarket preferred), distribution, or other inventory-carrying environments.
• Advanced Excel skills, including complex modeling, large data sets, and model design that others can follow.
• Working with large data sets and reconciling financial and operational data.
• Strong understanding of GAAP fundamentals, cost accounting concepts, and the mechanics of the three financial statements.
• Demonstrated ability to communicate financial concepts to non-finance audiences and influence without direct authority.

Responsibilities

• Lead the annual budget and rolling forecast processes, including timeline management, template design, and consolidation across business units.
• Build and maintain driver-based financial models tied to operational inputs such as volume, unit cost, capacity utilization, and freight rates.
• Deliver monthly and quarterly variance analysis (actual vs. budget, forecast, and prior year) with clear explanation of root cause — not just the delta.
• Partner with accounting during close to ensure accruals, reclasses, and reporting assumptions are understood and reflected accurately.
• Act as the embedded finance contact for assigned functional leaders, providing decision support on make/buy, staffing, capital requests, and cost initiatives.
• Translate financial results into plain-language insight for non-financial stakeholders, and challenge assumptions constructively.
• Support operations and supply chain with analysis of standard cost, purchase price variance, manufacturing variances, inventory turns, and landed cost.
• Contribute to customer, product, and channel profitability reviews that inform commercial strategy.
• Develop scenario and sensitivity models to quantify the financial impact of demand shifts, input cost inflation, tariffs, capacity changes, and footprint decisions.
• Build business cases and ROI/payback analysis for capital expenditures, automation projects ROI/payback, new product ROI analysis, facility optimization analysis, or facility investments.
• Prepare executive and board-level materials that present complex analysis clearly and defensibly.
• Support long-range planning, working capital analysis, and cash flow forecasting.
• Own and enhance recurring management reporting packages, dashboards, and KPI reporting.
• Reduce manual effort by improving data flows between SAP, planning tools, and BI platform; replace spreadsheet-heavy processes where practical.
• Document processes and establish repeatable standards so analysis is consistent, auditable, and transferable.
• Assist in data collection, consolidation, and analysis for M&A activities.

Skills

Advanced Excel

Data analysis

GAAP knowledge

Communication of financial concepts

Cross-functional influence

Education

Bachelor's degree in Finance/Accounting/Economics

MBA or equivalent

CPA / CMA / CFA

Tools

SAP S4/HANA

Power BI

Tableau

SQL / Python

Job description

The COATS Company is seeking a Senior FP&A Analyst in La Vergne, TN to partner with operations, supply chain, and executive leadership. Build driver-based forecasts, analyze cost variances, and present findings to senior leaders on a regular cadence.

You will own planning cycles, translate operational activity into financial insight, and continuously improve forecasting, budgeting, and reporting processes across finance, operations, and commercial teams.