SAP Project Manager Financials, Contracts & License Management

Project Manager Financials, Contracts & License Management

Role Summary

This role is accountable for end-to-end financial stewardship, contract oversight, and software license management across one or more technology and business transformation projects. This role ensures projects are delivered within approved budgets and commercial terms, that supplier/customer obligations are met, and that all software licenses are compliant, cost-effective, and aligned to project phasing. The PM partners closely with Finance, Procurement/Legal, Architecture, and Workstream Leads to maintain transparency, control, and audit-readiness throughout the project lifecycle.

Key Responsibilities

1) Project Financial Management

• Build and own the project financial plan (baseline budget, forecast, and funding profile) including labor, third-party costs, hardware/software, contingency, and capitalization policy treatments.
• Run monthly/quarterly financial cycles: actuals reconciliation, accruals, re-forecasting, variance analysis, and corrective actions; prepare executive-ready financial dashboards.
• Track cost to complete (CTC), estimate at completion (EAC), burn rate, and earned value (BAC/EV/AC/CV/SV); maintain change logs for scope/budget movements.
• Drive purchase requisitions, POs, goods receipts, and invoice approvals on schedule; resolve mismatches (3-way match issues, rate cards, SOW misalignment).
• Ensure compliance with internal controls (delegation of authority, capitalization vs. expense, audit traceability) and any industry-specific requirements.

2) Contract & Commercial Management

• Coordinate drafting, negotiation, and administration of statements of work (SOW), change orders, and service agreements with vendors and partners.
• Maintain the contract register: obligations, deliverables, milestones, acceptance criteria, SLAs, warranties, and termination/renewal dates.
• Monitor supplier performance against contractual terms; lead acceptance reviews, track service credits, and escalate non?conformance.
• Manage financial/commercial risks (indexation, FX exposure, price escalators, IP/usage rights, liability caps) and ensure timely corrective actions.
• Align contract deliverables with project schedule and gating (design sign-off, test completion, go-live) to protect value realization.

3) Software License Management

• Create and maintain the project license plan: entitlements, metrics (user, device, processor, core), environments (dev/test/prod), and phase-in/phase-out.
• Coordinate true-ups/true-downs, subscription renewals, and audit responses; prevent over-deployment and shelfware through continuous reconciliation.
• Optimize licensing costs via role-based access, right-sizing tiers/editions, and retiring unused entitlements; track indirect access and integration impacts.
• Ensure license compliance across vendors (e.g., ERP, analytics, middleware, testing tools) and align with security/identity governance.
• Partner with Architecture and PMO to map license needs to cutover waves, training, and hypercare.

4) Governance, Planning & Delivery Control

• Integrate financial/contract/license checkpoints into the master schedule and stage gates; maintain RAID (Risks, Assumptions, Issues, Dependencies) with financial/commercial tags.
• Facilitate steering committee updates, highlighting financial status, contract risk, and license posture with clear decisions and actions.
• Lead change control (scope/cost/time), ensuring business cases, approvals, and contract changes are synchronized.
• Coordinate with Workstream PMs to ensure budgets, resource plans, and vendor deliverables are aligned and traceable to requirements.
• Support testing, cutover, and hypercare with the necessary commercial and license readiness (e.g., trial keys, temp entitlements, production activations).

Qualifications & Experience

• Demonstrated experience managing SOWs, change orders, and software licensing for complex platforms (ERP, SCM, CRM, MES, analytics).
• Strong financial acumen (forecasting, EAC/ETC, earned value, variance analysis) and command of procurement/AP processes.
• Prior experience working with Finance, Legal/Procurement, and Architecture/Security in a regulated or audit-sensitive environment.

Skills

• Financial Control: Budgeting, forecasting, accruals, capitalization policy, EVM, KPI reporting.
• Commercial & Contracting: SOW drafting, vendor negotiation, performance management, risk allocation.
• License Management: Entitlement tracking, audit readiness, optimization techniques, SAM tooling familiarity.
• Delivery & Planning: Integrated schedule management, dependency control, stage-gate governance, cutover readiness.
• Communication: Executive reporting, vendor and stakeholder engagement, clear decision logs and action tracking.
• Tools: MS Project (or equivalent), Excel/Power BI for financial dashboards, Azure DevOps/Jira, eProcurement/AP systems, and SAM tools.

Certifications (Preferred)

• PMP or PRINCE2; Agile/Scrum certification.
• Software Asset Management (SAM) certifications or vendor-specific licensing accreditations.