Manufacturing Controller

Manufacturing Controller

Location: Onsite at our Chandler, Arizona manufacturing facility, with regular presence in the warehouse and on the production floor. This is not a remote role.

Compensation: Commensurate with experience.

Reporting relationship: Reports to the CEO. Works closely with the Staff Accountant, Director of Operations, Director of Quality, and Warehouse Manager.

About Adept Life Sciences

Adept Life Sciences is a contract manufacturer of nutraceutical and dietary supplement products based in Chandler, Arizona. Operating under cGMP conditions, we produce liquids, powders, capsules, tablets, and chews for consumer brands, running weigh-and-blend, encapsulation, tableting, and multiple packaging lines from a single facility.

We are a lean organization of approximately thirty-five people across production, quality, warehouse, maintenance, and commercial functions. As a result, the individual in this role will have meaningful access, direct influence, and minimal bureaucracy.

Responsibilities

1. Month-End Close and Internal Controls

• Develop and own a documented close calendar with named owners and firm cutoff dates.
• Review and approve reconciliations, accruals, and journal entries prepared by the Staff Accountant.
• Establish balance sheet account reconciliation standards and ensure every material account is fully supported.
• Assess segregation of duties across cash, purchasing, and payroll, and remediate the gaps that matter most.
• Reduce close cycle time to a target established within the first two weeks.

2. Job Costing Buildout

• Design a lot-level job costing model that ties direct labor, materials consumption, third-party lab testing, and manufacturing overhead to each production lot.
• Establish the burden rate methodology, including the absorption of indirect labor, sanitation, maintenance, and unallocated production time.
• Reconcile source systems—labor capture, batch records, purchasing and receiving, and third-party lab invoices—and resolve identifier mismatches between them.
• Build a costing subledger outside the general ledger and establish a reliable tie-back to QuickBooks Online each period.
• Produce a cost-per-unit view by product and by customer that finance, sales, and operations can align on.
• Document the model in sufficient detail that the Cost Accountant and Staff Accountant can run it monthly without your involvement.

3. Monthly Inventory Review and Cycle Count Oversight

• Conduct a documented monthly inventory review: sign off on the subledger-to-general-ledger reconciliation, work through variance detail, and approve adjustments before they post.
• Maintain a regular presence in the warehouse. Attend and oversee cycle counts in person, observe counting practices on the floor, and verify that what is counted matches what is recorded.
• Define the cycle count policy, including frequency, item selection, tolerance thresholds, recount triggers, and sign-off authority.
• Trace count variances to root cause alongside the Warehouse Manager and Production Supervisor, and hold corrective actions to firm dates.
• Approve period-end valuation of raw materials, work-in-process, and finished goods, and own the reasonableness of the obsolescence and short-dated reserve.
• Assess inventory controls end to end—receiving and put-away accuracy, material issue authorization, lot traceability, adjustment posting rights, and write-off approval thresholds—and close the gaps that carry material exposure.
• Plan and oversee the annual physical inventory, and review tag reconciliation before any adjustment posts.
• Review and approve the Cost Accountant's inventory work rather than duplicating it.

4. Financial Reporting and Analysis

• Produce GAAP-basis monthly financial statements with supporting schedules.
• Build a management reporting package for ownership covering margin by customer, margin by product line, labor efficiency, and overhead absorption.
• Establish budget-to-actual reporting and explain variances in operational rather than purely accounting terms.
• Bring inventory and work-in-process valuation to a defensible position.

5. Systems and Process Improvement

• Review the QuickBooks Online chart of accounts and restructure it to support product-line and cost-center reporting.
• Clean up the item master and costing setup so that standard costs and bills of material reflect actual floor operations.
• Evaluate whether an inventory or manufacturing application should complement QuickBooks Online, and scope the effort required, so that decisions are driven by data rather than vendor pitches.
• Write practical, plain-language desk procedures for recurring accounting workflows.
• Identify opportunities to automate manual work and build the business case for doing so.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Accounting or Finance.
• Ten or more years of progressive accounting experience, including at least three years in a Controller or Assistant Controller role.
• Hands-on manufacturing accounting experience. Costing, work-in-process, bills of material, and overhead absorption must be capabilities you have built firsthand, not concepts you have only studied.
• Demonstrated experience designing or rebuilding a job costing or product costing model from the ground up.
• Proven experience owning inventory in a physical operation, including cycle count programs, physical inventories, subledger-to-general-ledger reconciliation, and reserve judgment. This role requires presence in the warehouse during counts, not after-the-fact file review.
• Advanced Excel proficiency, with the ability to work with large, unstructured exports from multiple systems and transform them into reliable output.
• Willingness to work onsite in Chandler, with regular time on the production floor and in the warehouse.
• Ability to operate independently. This role has no supporting finance team.

Preferred Qualifications

• MBA
• Experience in nutraceutical, dietary supplement, food, beverage, or pharmaceutical manufacturing.
• QuickBooks Online experience, particularly building manufacturing cost reporting where the general ledger does not provide it.
• Experience implementing an inventory or manufacturing application alongside a small-business accounting system.
• Experience in a contract or co-manufacturing model where customer-level profitability drives pricing.

Pay: From $90,000.00 per hour

Application Question(s):

• What is your salary expectation for this position?

Experience:

• Manufacturing : 3 years (Preferred)

Work Location: In person