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.
Regards,
Jagannath Gaddam
