Part-Time Finance & Accounting Analyst - Production Finance

About Harbinger

Harbinger is an American commercial electric vehicle (EV) company on a mission to transform an industry starving for innovation. Harbinger’s best-in-class team of EV, battery, and drivetrain experts have pooled their deep experience to bring a first-of-its-kind EV platform to support the growing demand for medium-duty EVs and Hybrids. Harbinger: Familiar Form, Revolutionary Foundation.

Role Summary:

We are seeking a graduate or MBA student with a strong accounting foundation to join our Production Finance team on a part-time, ongoing basis.

You will report directly to the Sr. Financial Analyst on the Production Finance team, currently a team of one with plans to grow. This is an early hire into that function, and the work you do will directly shape how Production Finance operates as the team scales.

This role blends accounting operations with financial analysis, sitting at the seam between our ERP system and our books. Your primary focus will be ensuring that production costs, including direct labor, direct materials, freight, and manufacturing overhead, are accurately identified, correctly classified, and flowing into our financial statements the right way. You will partner closely with our Cost Accountant and Accounting team as key cross-functional stakeholders, but your day-to-day direction and priorities come from Production Finance.

Key Responsibilities

Accounting Accuracy and ERP Data Integrity

• Partner with the Cost Accountant and Accounting team as cross-functional stakeholders to identify and resolve discrepancies in NetSuite, including misclassified costs, missing accruals, incorrect account mappings, and data entry errors that are causing the books to not reflect operational reality.
• Review transaction data flowing from operations into NetSuite, including purchase orders, receipts, work orders, and vendor invoices, and flag or correct items that are not being recorded accurately.
• Help establish cleaner data standards across account codes, cost center assignments, item classifications, and transaction coding rules so that new activity flows into the right place from the start.

Journal Entries and Month-End Close

• Prepare and post journal entries in coordination with the Sr. Financial Analyst and in close collaboration with the Cost Accountant, including accruals, reclassifications, inventory adjustments, cost corrections, and period-end entries.
• Support month-end close by completing assigned reconciliations, preparing supporting schedules, and ensuring all assigned accounts are ticked and tied before close.
• Document journal entry logic and maintain organized workpapers so the close process is auditable, repeatable, and not dependent on any one person.

Manufacturing Overhead Identification and Modeling

• Help identify, define, and categorize manufacturing overhead costs across the factory, including indirect labor, indirect materials, utilities, facility costs, equipment depreciation, maintenance, and other overhead spend that is not directly traceable to a unit of production.
• Support the development of overhead rate models by analyzing actual overhead costs, selecting appropriate allocation bases (e.g., machine hours, direct labor hours, units produced), and calculating predetermined or actual overhead rates for use in product costing.
• Build and maintain overhead tracking models that provide clear visibility into overhead spend by category, period, and cost center, and enable comparison of applied versus actual overhead.
• Assist in reviewing and reconciling over- and under-absorbed overhead, and help determine the appropriate accounting treatment at period end.
• Work with the Sr. Financial Analyst to ensure overhead costs are correctly flowing from operational activity into NetSuite and being applied to inventory and COGS in a way that reflects economic reality.

Cost Classification and Mapping

• Support the formalization of Harbinger's cost structure as the company matures from early-stage startup to active manufacturer, including establishing clear definitions for direct material, direct labor, manufacturing overhead, and period costs.
• Review existing transaction history in NetSuite to identify costs that have been miscategorized or inconsistently coded, and work through systematic reclassification with the Accounting team.
• Help build and document a cost mapping framework: a clear reference that defines how different types of spend should flow through the chart of accounts, ensuring consistent treatment going forward.
• Partner with cross-functional stakeholders in Operations, Procurement, and HR to understand the nature of costs being incurred and ensure they are recorded in a way that is both operationally accurate and GAAP-appropriate.

Cost Accounting and Variance Analysis

• Collaborate with the Cost Accountant to review standard costs, BOM cost structures, and inventory valuation to ensure they reflect actual production activity.
• Analyze cost variances across purchase price, usage, labor efficiency, and overhead, and help trace discrepancies back to their source, whether in operations, in cost classification, or in how data is being entered.
• Support COGS and gross margin reporting, ensuring that production completions, scrap, rework, and material movements are all properly reflected in the financials.

Financial Reporting and Ad Hoc Analysis

• Once accounting data is reliable, assist in building and maintaining production finance reports and dashboards covering labor, materials, freight, and overhead performance.
• Support forecasting and budget-to-actual variance analysis across manufacturing cost lines.
• Take on ad hoc financial analysis and project support as priorities arise across the Production Finance team.

What You Will Gain

• Hands-on experience inside a live NetSuite environment, identifying real data issues, implementing fixes, and building better processes around them.
• Direct application of cost accounting principles in a manufacturing environment, including overhead rate development, inventory valuation, COGS flow, and variance analysis.
• The rare opportunity to help build a cost structure from near-scratch at a real manufacturer, defining how costs are classified, mapped, and reported in a way that will endure as the company scales.
• Full exposure to the month-end close cycle at a growing startup, including journal entries, reconciliations, and cross-functional collaboration with the Accounting team.
• Experience working at the intersection of finance and operations, where the numbers have to make sense both analytically and in the books.

Required Qualifications

• Currently enrolled in or recently completed an MBA or graduate program with strong accounting coursework in cost accounting, managerial accounting, or financial reporting. A CPA candidate or someone with a solid undergraduate accounting background and relevant experience will also be considered.
• Genuine command of accounting and cost accounting principles: debits and credits, accrual accounting, the flow of costs through inventory and COGS, overhead identification and allocation, journal entry preparation and review, and account reconciliation. Prior coursework in cost accounting or managerial accounting is strongly preferred.
• Familiarity with ERP systems, ideally NetSuite. Hands-on experience in any ERP (SAP, Oracle, QuickBooks, etc.) is a plus and signals the right kind of systems literacy.
• Proficiency in Google Sheets and/or Excel, including data manipulation, reconciliation workpapers, and basic financial modeling.
• Highly detail-oriented. You are the person who notices the $5K that does not belong and tracks it down.
• Strong communicator who can work across Finance and Accounting teams, translate between operational activity and accounting treatment, and document findings clearly.
• Work authorized in the United States or able to obtain J-1/F-1 visa sponsorship.
• Prior experience in accounting, finance, or ERP-adjacent roles through internships or work experience is preferred.