Cost Accountant, Inventory & COGS

Job description

Position Overview Rugs USA is seeking an experienced Cost Accountant with strong inventory and COGS accounting expertise to help bring greater accuracy, visibility, and control to our product costs, inventory valuation, and gross margin reporting. This role is ideal for someone who already understands cost accounting fundamentals and wants to apply that expertise in a fast-moving retail and e-commerce environment. As our Cost Accountant, Inventory & COGS, you will maintain standard costs, review inventory valuation, analyze landed cost and purchase price variances, and investigate margin performance by SKU, vendor, category, and channel. This is not a role where we can train someone on cost accounting from the ground up; we need someone who brings proven cost accounting knowledge and can quickly learn our company-specific processes, systems, and procedures. You will partner closely with operations, procurement, logistics, merchandising, and supply chain teams to identify cost drivers, improve data accuracy, explain margin movement, and support smarter business decisions. If you enjoy working with detailed cost and inventory data and turning COGS and margin analysis into actionable insights, this is a strong opportunity to make a measurable impact on a growing retail business. This is a hybrid role requiring on-site presence in our Manhattan office 3 to 4 days per week. Essential Job Functions Prepare, review, and post daily, weekly, and monthly COGS, inventory, freight, duty, tariff, and landed cost journal entries. Reconcile inventory subledger activity to the general ledger, including inventory, freight-in, duty, tariff, capitalized freight, clearing, in-transit, and received-not-invoiced balances. Maintain and analyze standard costs, purchase cost changes, and vendor-level cost movements by SKU. Compare estimated landed cost to actual landed cost and investigate purchase price variance activity across systems. Analyze gross margin performance by SKU, vendor, product category, and channel, identifying the impact of cost changes, freight, duty, tariffs, markdowns, returns, damages, shrink, and inventory adjustments. Partner with merchandising, procurement, logistics, and operations to explain margin movement, validate cost assumptions, and support pricing, sourcing, and profitability decisions. Support SKU-level profitability reporting and highlight margin opportunities, cost leakage, incorrect freight coding, and other drivers of margin erosion. Review and post warehouse adjustments, cycle count variances, damages, disposals, returns, transfers, and write-offs. Support inventory reserve calculations and review inventory aging by SKU and location. Ensure month-end inventory cutoff accuracy and validate inventory movements across WMS, OMS, and ERP systems. Coordinate with cross-functional teams to prepare accurate in-transit inventory and capitalized freight entries. Partner with Logistics to monitor freight trends and assess their impact on product cost and gross margin. Prepare audit schedules and investigate unusual cost, margin, or inventory valuation issues. You Have We’re looking for someone who brings hands-on cost accounting experience, strong inventory discipline, analytical curiosity, and the ability to translate complex cost, inventory, COGS, and margin data into clear business insights. Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Business, or a related field. 2–5 years of experience in cost accounting, inventory accounting, retail, distribution, e-commerce, manufacturing, or a related environment. Strong understanding of standard costing, landed cost, inventory valuation, variance analysis, cost-of-goods-sold accounting, and gross margin analysis. Ability to analyze gross margin drivers across product cost, freight, duty, tariffs, markdowns, returns, damages, shrink, and inventory adjustments. Knowledge of generally accepted accounting principles, financial controls, and month-end close procedures. Advanced Microsoft Excel skills, including pivot tables, lookups, formulas, data validation, and analysis of large datasets. Experience with ERP, WMS, OMS, or similar systems such as SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, NetSuite, or comparable platforms. Strong analytical, problem-solving, and attention-to-detail skills. Ability to communicate cost and margin drivers clearly to finance and non-finance stakeholders. Ability to manage deadlines and work effectively across accounting, logistics, procurement, merchandising, operations, and supply chain teams. Preferred Skills Experience in retail, e-commerce, distribution, fulfillment, consumer goods, manufacturing, or import-heavy product environments. Experience analyzing landed cost, freight, duty, tariffs, inventory adjustments, or SKU-level profitability. Experience supporting month-end close, audit schedules, inventory reserves, or inventory reconciliations. Familiarity with multi-system inventory environments involving ERP, WMS, OMS, or related platforms. Strong continuous improvement mindset with the ability to identify process gaps, data issues, and opportunities to improve cost visibility. Your Life and Career at RugsUSA This is an opportunity to contribute to a fast-growing, data-driven e-commerce retailer by helping improve cost visibility, inventory accuracy, and gross margin understanding across the business. Eligible full-time employees have access to: A culture that promotes a healthy work/life balance Benefits package including medical, dental, vision, PTO, 401(k) Exposure to career advancement opportunities across all departments Generous employee discount that can be used across our house of brands! About RugsUSA Since launching in 1998, Rugs USA has established itself as a leading innovative online destination for an extensive variety of high-quality, on-trend area rugs at prices customers won’t find anywhere else. Passionate about the impact that the perfect rug brings to a space, we foster close relationships with the designers, artisans, and factories who make our goods, giving us the ability to simplify our business model and deliver exceptional pricing and a vast assortment of styles. By guiding our customers through the rug buying process and offering a curated selection of complementary lighting and accessories, we’ve become our customers’ ultimate secret weapon in bringing their vision of home to life - at any budget.