Job Description: SAP Central Finance (CFIN) – Onsite Tower Lead
Role: Onsite Tower Lead – SAP Central Finance (CFIN)
Location: Grand Rapids / Allegan, Michigan – Onsite
Domain: SAP Finance & Central Finance
Client Interview: Yes
Role Summary
The SAP Central Finance (CFIN) Onsite Tower Lead will be responsible for end-to-end delivery, governance, operational stability, and continuous improvement of the Corporate/Finance tower. The role will act as the primary onsite point of contact for Finance/CFIN, coordinating with business stakeholders, client IT teams, offshore delivery teams, and cross-functional SAP teams.
The candidate will lead incident triage, business impact/urgency validation, prioritization, SLA management, root-cause analysis, problem management, enhancements, replication monitoring, reconciliation, and Finance close support.
The role requires strong hands-on expertise in SAP S/4HANA Finance and Central Finance, particularly AIF, SLT, MDG, CFIN mapping, replication, reconciliation, and error handling, together with strong leadership, troubleshooting, and stakeholder-management capabilities.
Key Responsibilities
SAP CFIN & Finance Support
- Provide end-to-end support for SAP CFIN and FI/CO processes, including GL, AP, AR, Asset Accounting, Cost Centre Accounting, Profit Centre Accounting, CO, CO-PA/Margin Analysis, Product Costing, and Intercompany processes.
- Support critical Finance operations including month-end, quarter-end, and year-end close, reconciliations, and financial reporting.
- Analyse complex CFIN/FI/CO issues and coordinate resolution across functional and technical teams.
- Ensure operational stability and proactively identify potential business-critical issues.
CFIN Replication, AIF, SLT & MDG
- Monitor and troubleshoot SAP SLT replication from source ERP systems into Central Finance.
- Monitor SAP AIF, analyse replication/interface failures, identify root causes, and coordinate error correction and reprocessing.
- Troubleshoot issues involving source systems, SLT, MDG/master data, mapping, AIF, CFIN configuration, and target Finance processes.
- Manage/support Key Mapping, Business Mapping, Cost Object Mapping, mapping rules, and master-data harmonization.
- Support initial load, ongoing replication, data validation, and reconciliation activities where applicable.
These areas are consistent with the CFIN responsibilities used in the existing internal requirement, which includes GL/AP/AR/AA/CO support, SLT troubleshooting, and mapping.
Reconciliation & Data Integrity
- Ensure completeness and accuracy of financial data replicated from source systems into CFIN.
- Perform/coordinate source-to-CFIN reconciliation, including financial documents, balances, and CO postings.
- Investigate missing, failed, duplicate, or incorrectly mapped transactions and drive corrective action.
- Ensure replication and reconciliation issues are resolved without impacting critical Finance close and reporting activities.
Previous CFIN staffing material also included FI document/balance comparison, CO document validation, AIF monitoring, and financial reconciliation.
Incident, Problem & Change Management
- Lead Finance/CFIN incident triage, including business impact and urgency validation and appropriate ticket prioritization.
- Take ownership of P1/P2 and business-critical incidents, including coordination of bridge calls and cross-functional teams.
- Monitor SLA-risk and aging tickets and drive timely resolution.
- Lead Root Cause Analysis (RCA) for critical and recurring incidents and ensure corrective/preventive actions are implemented.
- Convert recurring incidents into Problem Management/permanent-fix initiatives.
- Manage Finance/CFIN changes and enhancements from requirement analysis through testing, deployment, and stabilization.
- Coordinate Unit Testing, SIT, UAT, regression testing, cutover, go-live, and hyper care as applicable.
Tower Leadership & Service Delivery
- Act as the primary onsite point of contact for the SAP Finance/CFIN tower.
- Lead and coordinate onsite/offshore delivery teams and ensure clear ownership and accountability.
- Conduct regular reviews of P1/P2 incidents, aging tickets, SLA risks, problem records, RCAs, changes, enhancements, and operational risks.
- Drive SLA/KPI adherence, backlog reduction, ticket quality, and timely resolution.
- Coordinate with SAP functional teams including MM, SD, PP, Treasury, MDG, ABAP, Basis, and Integration for cross-functional issues.
- Mentor and provide functional guidance to offshore/support team members.
- Provide clear status and escalation communication to Finance stakeholders and IT leadership.
- Drive continuous improvement, automation, proactive monitoring, knowledge management, and reduction of repeat incidents.
Required Skills & Experience
- 10+ years of SAP Finance (FI/CO) experience with strong SAP S/4HANA exposure.
- Significant hands-on SAP Central Finance (CFIN) implementation, enhancement, and/or production support experience.
- Deep expertise in:
- SAP Central Finance
- AIF
- SLT
- MDG integration
- Key & Business Mapping
- Data Replication & Error Handling
- Financial Reconciliation
- Strong functional expertise in GL, AP, AR, AA, CO, CO-PA/Margin Analysis, Product Costing, and Intercompany processes.
- Strong understanding of month-end/year-end closing and Finance reconciliation processes.
- Good understanding of SAP Finance integration with MM, SD, PP and other connected systems.
- Hands-on experience with Incident, Problem, Change and Major Incident Management.
- Proven ability to perform RCA and drive permanent resolution of recurring issues.
- Experience leading onsite/offshore delivery models and managing global support teams.
- Excellent analytical, troubleshooting, communication, stakeholder-management, and leadership skills.
Your earlier internal CFIN requirement additionally called out hands-on CFIN Controlling, CO-PA and Product Costing, so those have been retained explicitly.
Preferred Qualifications
- Prior experience as SAP CFIN/Finance Tower Lead, Application Lead, Support Lead, or Service Delivery Lead.
- SAP S/4HANA Finance / SAP Central Finance certification.
- Experience with OpenText VIM and connected Finance applications.
- Knowledge of SAP Treasury/TRM, Group Reporting, and Intercompany Reconciliation/ICMR.
- Experience with SAP MDG and multi-source/multi-ERP CFIN environments.
- Experience in global AMS/support engagements.
- Good understanding of ITIL Incident, Problem, Change, and Service Management processes.
Treasury, Group Reporting, Intercompany Reconciliation, and ITIL were also included in your previous CFIN requirement
Ideal Candidate
The ideal candidate should combine strong hands-on CFIN technical/functional expertise with Finance domain knowledge and service-delivery leadership. The individual should be capable of independently troubleshooting complex CFIN issues while also leading the Finance tower, managing P1/P2 incidents, engaging senior stakeholders, coordinating onsite/offshore teams, and driving permanent fixes and continuous improvement.
Key profile:
CFIN + AIF + SLT + MDG + FI/CO + CO-PA + Product Costing + Replication/Reconciliation + P1/P2/RCA + SLA Governance + Onsite/Offshore Leadership
