Staff Accountant

Job Description

Accountant – Nicholasville | Smurfit Westrock

The Tone:
This is a full-time role at Smurfit Westrock, located in Nicholasville, KY. Smurfit Westrock is recognized as the go-to leader and partner of choice in sustainable packaging, dedicated to creating efficient and scalable paper and packaging solutions that help solve complex packaging challenges for customers. Guided by core values of safety, loyalty, integrity, and respect, this early-career role is crucial for ensuring timely and accurate financial information, supporting continuous improvement initiatives, and ultimately contributing to delivering meaningful value for shareholders, customers, employees, and the communities where Smurfit Westrock operates.

The TL;DR
• Role: Early Career
• Type: Full-time
• Location: In-person Nicholasville, KY

• Team: Plant finance team, reports to Senior Finance Manager
• Mission: This role supports the Nicholasville plant finance team by performing essential cost accounting functions, conducting operational analysis, reviewing and correcting ERP job-costs, maintaining financial data, and executing core accounting activities to help ensure timely, accurate financial information and support continuous improvement within a global manufacturing organization.
• Tech Stack: Microsoft Excel, ERP system

What You’ll Actually Do
• Analysis: Prepare monthly operational analyses that clearly explain financial performance and identify the primary drivers contributing to those results.
• Cost Accounting: Perform a daily review of manufacturing jobs within the plant ERP system, researching cost variances and completing accurate, timely job-cost corrections.
• Operational Support: Provide cross-functional backup support for accounts payable and accounts receivable processes, including invoice reviews, payment validation, and account reconciliations, to ensure accurate financial reporting and strong internal controls.
• General Accounting: Execute general accounting activities, which include general ledger accounting, preparing journal entries, completing account reconciliations, and departmental account balancing.
• Process Improvement: Identify and communicate potential process inefficiencies observed within Sales, Production, and other plant functions to foster operational enhancements.

The Must-Haves
• Background: Bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, or a related field from an accredited four-year college or university. This is an early-career role.
• Experience: One to two years of relevant accounting experience; accounting internship experience may be considered as relevant.
• Skills: Proficiency in Microsoft Excel; ability to analyze information, identify discrepancies, and maintain accurate financial data; strong organizational skills, attention to detail, and capability to meet deadlines; clear written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to work effectively across all levels of the organization.
• Bonus: Manufacturing, cost accounting, or ERP experience is preferred but not required.