Job Title : SAP Cloud ERP Finance Configuration Lead
Location : Chicago, IL Remote ( Travel on needed basis)
Role Overview
SAP Cloud ERP finance configuration lead owns the functional configuration, stabilization, and continuous improvement of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition Finance across financial accounting, management accounting/controlling, cash and treasury-related processes, and event-based revenue recognition. Serve as the senior configuration authority connecting Finance process owners, enterprise architecture, integration, data, security, and support teams after go-live.
Key Responsibilities
- Own the Finance configuration backlog and translate approved business requirements into fit-to-standard configuration decisions.
- Lead configuration and functional design across General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Asset Accounting, organizational/controlling structures, allocations, and period-end processes within deployed scope.
- Own management accounting configuration including cost centers, profit centers, internal reporting dimensions, settlement/allocation concepts, and profitability-relevant design within Public Cloud capabilities.
- Lead functional ownership of Event-Based Revenue Recognition for project-based services, including recognition methods, accounting treatment, issue analysis, period-end activities, and reconciliation with source transactions.
- Support cash and liquidity management, bank account/house bank design, payment-related configuration, and treasury processes included in the enterprise scope.
- Assess defects and enhancement requests, distinguishing configuration, master-data, integration, authorization, data, and product-standard causes.
- Drive root-cause analysis for finance posting, derivation, valuation, revenue recognition, and closing issues; coordinate resolution through the correct delivery team.
- Maintain configuration documentation, decision records, test evidence, operating procedures, and traceability from requirement through production deployment.
- Define functional acceptance criteria and lead unit, regression, release, and business validation for Finance changes.
- Partner with data teams on finance master and transactional data quality, mapping, reconciliation, and migration/cutover corrections.
- Partner with integration teams on upstream/downstream accounting impacts and API/interface error handling.
- Support Finance business users during close, billing/revenue recognition cycles, and high-severity production incidents.
- Review SAP release changes and feature impacts for Finance and recommend adoption, regression scope, or mitigation actions.
- Enforce clean-core and fit-to-standard principles, escalating custom requirements that materially increase operational complexity.
- Provide functional leadership to analysts/configurators and external system integrator resources, including quality review of deliverables.
SAP / Product-Specific Responsibilities
- SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition Finance configuration using the supported configuration environment and SAP Central Business Configuration where applicable.
- Financial Accounting, Management Accounting/Controlling, Asset Accounting, payments, Cash and Liquidity Management, and relevant Treasury and Risk Management scope where licensed/deployed.
- Event-Based Revenue Recognition for project-based services, including issue monitoring/reprocessing, period-end validation, and integration with General Ledger.
- SAP Fiori applications, business roles, configuration transports/deployment processes, and release-specific feature adoption.
- Functional integration with Professional Services/customer projects, procurement, expenses, time, billing, tax, banking, and enterprise reporting.
Operational Responsibilities
Own Finance production stabilization, incident triage, recurring-problem elimination, and functional service health.
Establish post-go-live controls for close readiness, revenue-recognition exceptions, failed postings, interface-related finance errors, and configuration drift.
Maintain a prioritized continuous-improvement roadmap aligned to quarterly/biannual cloud release cycles and business close calendars.
Ensure production changes follow change control, segregation-of-duties, regression testing, deployment, and hypercare standards.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
Finance/Controllership, Treasury, Tax, Billing, Professional Services operations, Procurement, Data, Integration, Security/IAM, Enterprise Architecture, QA/Release Management, SAP support, and implementation partners.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in finance, Accounting, Information Systems, Engineering, or related discipline, or equivalent experience.
- 8+ years of SAP Finance delivery experience, including significant hands-on configuration leadership.
- Hands-on experience with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition or comparable S/4HANA cloud delivery, including post-go-live support.
- Demonstrated experience translating accounting policy and professional-services business requirements into SAP configuration and controls.
- Strong understanding of integrated financial postings, period close, reconciliation, and production support.
Required Technical / Functional Skills
- SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition Finance; Financial Accounting; Management Accounting/Controlling; Asset Accounting.
- Event-Based Revenue Recognition for project-based services; WIP/revenue/cost recognition concepts.
- Cash and Liquidity Management, bank/house-bank concepts, payments, and treasury-related process integration.
- SAP Fiori, configuration lifecycle, business roles, testing, defect analysis, and release impact assessment.
- Cross-functional integration with project billing, procurement, time/expense, tax, and reporting.
Preferred Qualifications
- Professional services or project-based enterprise experience.
- Experience with SAP Activate, fit-to-standard workshops, clean-core governance, and SAP Cloud ALM.
- Current SAP certification or learning credential aligned to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition Financial Accounting and/or Management Accounting is preferred.