Project Controller (Accounting)

• Maintain full accountability for the financial health of all active projects — tracking budgets vs. actuals, forecasting cost-to-complete, and escalating variances before they compound
• Ensure all project costs — labor, materials, subcontractors, freight, tooling, and overhead — are captured in full and allocated to the correct project and cost category
• Conduct weekly project cost reviews with Project Managers and Operations leadership; identify gaps, misallocations, and unposted costs and drive resolution
• Maintain accurate earned value and margin tracking across all projects; provide early notification to leadership of margin erosion or cost-at-completion risk
• Coordinate with Finance on monthly project close activities, accruals, and revenue recognition
• Reconcile project cost data in D365 against procurement actuals, payroll records, and vendor invoices to ensure no costs are omitted or misdirected
• Confirm that cost data is accurate and complete prior to issuance of project billing milestones and invoices

• Serve as the primary driver of accurate, timely labor entry across all engineering and manufacturing resources — this is among the most critical accountabilities of this position
• Collaborate directly with engineering team leads and production supervisors to ensure all hours are posted to the correct project, phase, and labor category in D365 on a daily or weekly basis
• Monitor timesheet compliance across all billable and non-billable personnel; escalate non-compliance to department managers and HR as appropriate
• Identify and address patterns of missing or incorrect labor allocation — including incorrect project codes, missing entries, or hours defaulting to overhead — through real-time correction, not end-of-month reconciliation
• Develop and maintain labor tracking reports comparing budgeted hours to actuals by project, department, and individual; distribute to project managers and department heads on a defined cadence
• Partner with HR and Payroll to reconcile total hours compensated against hours posted to projects; investigate and resolve discrepancies
• Work with manufacturing supervisors to establish disciplined shop floor labor capture practices, including proper clocking procedures for direct and indirect labor tied to specific work orders and projects
• Coordinate with department heads to establish labor budgets at the project phase level and maintain accountability to those estimates throughout execution

• Create and manage all projects in D365 F&O — including project setup, work breakdown structures (WBS), cost categories, and funding source configuration
• Maintain project data integrity and enforce system governance; ensure all transactions are posted accurately and within the correct accounting period
• Develop and maintain standardized project templates and category structures to support consistent, audit-ready project setup
• Train engineering, manufacturing, and procurement personnel on proper procedures for logging time, purchase requisitions, and expenses against projects in D365
• Serve as the internal subject matter expert for D365 project accounting — troubleshoot system issues, collaborate with IT on configuration requirements, and drive continuous process improvement
• Ensure all project-related purchasing, including purchase orders and subcontracts, is linked to the correct project and monitored against project budgets in D365

• Function as the primary financial liaison between Engineering, Manufacturing, Procurement, and Finance — translating operational activity into accurate, actionable financial data
• Participate in project status meetings to maintain current awareness of scope, schedule, and cost implications; provide financial input and escalate risks as appropriate
• Produce weekly and monthly project financial reports for Project Managers, Operations leadership, and the VP of Accounting — including budget vs. actual summaries, labor utilization, and cost-at-completion forecasts
• Develop and maintain Power BI dashboards or D365 reporting solutions that provide project managers with real-time financial visibility independent of direct Finance team involvement
• Support the project management team with cost impact analysis for change orders prior to approval
• Contribute to pre-project financial modeling and budget development in support of new bids and proposals

• Continuously analyze budget vs. actual data across completed and in-progress projects to identify patterns of cost overrun, margin erosion, or systemic misalignment between quoted assumptions and actual execution
• Where actuals indicate that current quoting practices are producing margins below expectations — due to labor hour underestimates, material cost assumptions, or unaccounted cost categories — prepare clear, data-supported recommendations for leadership and the estimating team
• Develop and maintain a formal post-project financial close process that captures lessons learned and translates them into actionable updates to quoting standards and cost assumptions
• Partner with Sales, Engineering, and Operations to evaluate quoted labor rates, hours, and material assumptions against actual project consumption; identify where quote models require recalibration
• Track final margin at project completion against margin at quote for every project; maintain a reference database of actual costs by project type and size to support future estimating efforts
• Escalate recurring quoting deficiencies to leadership with supporting data and specific recommendations — including which assumptions should be revised and by what magnitude

• Recommend and assist in implementing policies, procedures, and system configurations that optimize accurate cost and labor data capture across Engineering and Manufacturing — with a mandate to improve existing processes, not simply operate within them
• Identify breakdowns in how costs are entered and processed through D365 and propose process changes, system controls, or workflow modifications to address those gaps on a durable basis
• Evaluate and recommend tools — whether native to D365, third-party integrations, or supplemental tracking solutions — that improve the speed, accuracy, and completeness of project cost data
• Develop and maintain documented standard operating procedures (SOPs) covering project setup, labor entry, cost allocation, and project close to ensure consistency and scalability as the organization grows
• Conduct regular audits of existing cost capture processes; identify points of manual intervention, inconsistency, or error-proneness and drive standardization or automation
• Collaborate with IT and D365 administrators to propose and validate system configuration changes that enforce correct cost capture behavior at the point of entry

• All active projects maintain accurate, current financial data in D365 F&O — with no unposted costs, unresolved labor gaps, or allocation errors
• Engineering and manufacturing resources submit timely, accurate time entries consistently — a standard achieved through process design, training, and cross-functional accountability
• Project managers and Finance leadership have access to reliable, real-time financial data to support informed decision-making
• Cost variances are identified and communicated proactively, with context and recommended corrective action
• Labor budgets are established at project inception by phase and are actively monitored throughout project execution
• When budget vs. actual trends indicate systemic issues in quoting assumptions, leadership receives a data-supported analysis and specific recommendations for recalibration
• Policies, procedures, and tools governing cost capture are documented, communicated, and consistently applied across all departments
• Monthly project close activities are completed accurately, on schedule, and with minimal rework

• +6 years of experience in project accounting, project controls, or a related financial role
• Experience with ERP systems — D365 F&O strongly preferred; comparable systems (SAP, Oracle, Epicor) considered
• Strong understanding of project costing fundamentals: WBS structures, cost categories, budget vs. actual analysis, and earned value concepts
• Demonstrated ability to hold teams accountable for labor entry and cost capture without creating friction
• Excellent Excel skills; ability to build reconciliation workbooks and financial tracking tools
• Strong cross-functional communicator — equally effective with engineers, shop floor supervisors, and the CFO
• Detail-oriented and process-driven; you find errors before others do
• Comfortable working in a fast-moving environment where project scope evolves and urgency is the norm

• Direct experience with D365 F&O Project Management & Accounting module
• Experience in custom manufacturing, EPC, or project-based industrial businesses
• Power BI experience — ability to build and maintain project financial dashboards
• Familiarity with revenue recognition under ASC 606 for long-term contracts
• Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, Engineering, or Business Administration
• PMP, CPA, or CMA certification a plus
• Strong analytical skills

• Highly self-directed and action-oriented — establishes priorities independently, pursues resolution without requiring direction, and holds themselves accountable to outcomes
• Collaborative by nature — earns credibility across functions, works through people rather than around them, and understands that sustainable process improvement requires organizational buy-in
• Analytical and solution-oriented — identifies root causes, develops data-supported recommendations, and presents findings clearly to both financial and non-financial audiences
• Detail-oriented without losing sight of the bigger picture — maintains precision in cost data while remaining attuned to project-level and company-level financial health
• Effective communicator at all levels — equally capable of working alongside engineers and production personnel and presenting financial analysis to senior leadership
• Process-improvement minded — approaches inefficiency and data quality gaps as problems to be solved systematically, not tolerated
• Operates with urgency and accuracy simultaneously — understands that speed and quality are both non-negotiable in a fast-moving project environment
• Takes full ownership — when a cost is uncaptured, a process is broken, or a quoting assumption is producing margin erosion, this individual identifies it, owns it, and drives it to resolution

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