Inventory Costing Integrity Director

The mandate

The commission addresses a defined accounting problem: inventory cost, variance and obsolescence logic cannot currently be followed through a single controlled chain from approved methodology to reported balance. The Consulting Director will document the accounting design, test representative calculations and establish controls that internal owners can repeat. The engagement does not operate inventory, redesign supply processes or implement technology.

Required artifacts are a costing-method inventory, cost-component decision matrix, standard-cost and variance rulebook, overhead-allocation rationale, obsolescence evidence framework, roll-forward design, control matrix, pilot workbook and owner guide. The design must distinguish accounting policy from operational input and identify who is accountable when source assumptions are contested.

Four milestones apply: diagnostic and confirmed scope by 20 November 2026; draft methodology and high-judgment papers by 15 January 2027; pilot and control testing by 12 March; final remediation roadmap and handover by 30 April. Each milestone includes a ten-working-day review period. Unresolved accounting choices are dependencies, not assumptions the consultant may settle silently.

The Corporate Controller is the formal acceptor after cost-accounting, financial-control and nominated operational owners complete documented review. Final acceptance requires that internal staff reproduce the selected pilot calculations, trace material variances to approved drivers, identify seeded obsolescence evidence gaps and explain the reporting roll-forward without consultant intervention.

Management will supply approved inventory records, costing policies, representative calculations, historical variances, obsolescence evidence and access to responsible owners. The consultant owns analysis and artifact quality. Management retains policy approvals, estimates, production entries and representations. Any expansion into physical count execution, commercial pricing, source-process redesign or systems configuration enters change control.

What you will own

• Catalogue current costing methods and identify inconsistencies between written policy, calculation practice and reported outcomes.
• Define which cost components qualify, how overheads are allocated and when standards require refresh or exception review.
• Specify a variance taxonomy linking cause, financial treatment, investigation threshold, owner and close disposition.
• Build an obsolescence framework connecting ageing and movement evidence with item-specific facts and approved estimation judgment.
• Design a complete inventory roll-forward and reviewer trail that reconciles source movement, variance, provision and currency effects.
• Test the method on representative populations, log design and data defects, and verify correction before milestone acceptance.
• Train internal owners through worked cases and an independent reproduction of pilot outputs.
• Route policy choices to management and enforce change control for operational or technical work beyond the bounded accounting design.

Candidate qualifications

• Demonstrate leadership of a cost-accounting redesign involving standard cost, actual cost, variance and inventory provision judgments.
• Describe a costing error that persisted because policy, source assumptions and calculation ownership were conflated.
• Show how you tested overhead allocation for consistency, causality and reliable evidence rather than historical convenience.
• Provide an obsolescence approach that combined portfolio indicators with item-specific contrary evidence.
• Evidence a pilot acceptance test in which internal preparers reproduced calculations and detected deliberately introduced defects.
• Explain how you kept physical operations and systems activity outside a clearly bounded accounting engagement.
• Demonstrate concise issue escalation when management had to choose among defensible policy alternatives.

Working terms and boundaries

• The fixed fee covers six months, four days weekly and four named milestones with documented acceptance criteria.
• Scope includes accounting methodology, controls, testing and handover; physical counts, supply redesign, pricing and system build are excluded.
• The Corporate Controller accepts deliverables after internal reviewers complete evidence-based challenge and critical defects close.
• Management delay in data, owner access or policy decisions may change the schedule through written control, not automatic assumption.
• Organisation-specific artifacts transfer after final payment; reusable consulting methods and generic tools remain with the consultant.

Application

Applications for this mandate are received in one way only: through the India Board Terminal's application process. It is automated end to end. Your Executive Passport travels to the mandate holder in its confidential form, your answers to the three questions below are read before anything else in your file, and every stage that follows is recorded on your applications page.

There is no address to write to and no intermediary to call. The mandate holder reads what the Terminal delivers and nothing else, which is what keeps the process the same for every applicant and keeps your name out of it until you release it. Applications close on 8 October 2026. Mandate reference FNA-CON-2026-PAR-12.