SAP Professional Services Functional Lead

The Planet Group; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

The Planet Group is seeking an experienced SAP Cloud ERP Professional Services Functional Lead to own the functional design, configuration, stabilization, and optimization of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition Professional Services processes for a project-based organization.

This role focuses on the customer project lifecycle, project billing, time and cost capture, profitability, and operational controls, in close partnership with Finance.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of SAP Project Systems / Professional Services functional experience, including S/4HANA delivery.
• Experience with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition Professional Services and customer projects (hands-on configuration strongly preferred).
• Knowledge of project lifecycle, work packages, project master data, and project financial controls.
• Experience with project billing, billing plans, and billing elements.
• Experience integrating with Finance/Controlling and Event-Based Revenue Recognition.
• Understanding of project-based services economics, including time and cost capture, billing, margin, and revenue recognition dependencies.
• Familiarity with time/expense and resource management integration concepts.
• Experience with SAP Fiori, testing, defect triage, configuration governance, and release impact assessment.
• Production support experience following an ERP go-live.
• Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Information Systems, Engineering, or equivalent experience

Responsibilities

• Own the post-go-live functional roadmap and configuration backlog for SAP Professional Services and customer project capabilities.
• Configure and support customer project structures, stages, work packages, roles, planned effort, cost, and revenue inputs, and lifecycle controls.
• Lead functional design for billing preparation, billing plans, billing elements, and billing requests, including handoffs to billing and accounting.
• Support project financial planning, visibility into actual costs and revenue, margin analysis, and integration with Finance and Event-Based Revenue Recognition.
• Define and maintain project master data standards, templates, derivation rules, validation controls, and governance.
• Partner with resource management and time systems so project, role, assignment, budget, and time data are ready for downstream processing.
• Analyze production defects tied to customer projects, billing, time and cost postings, master data, workflow, or integrations.
• Lead acceptance criteria, test scenarios, regression packs, and business validation for Professional Services changes.
• Maintain end-to-end process documentation from project setup through time and cost capture, billing, revenue recognition, and closure.
• Drive fit-to-standard decisions and limit unnecessary custom extensions.
• Support business teams during billing cycles, project setup peaks, period-end activities, and critical incidents.
• Review SAP release changes to assess business impact, test scope, and adoption opportunities.
• Coordinate functional dependencies across Finance, Billing, HR/time, resource management, CRM/engagement systems, data, and integration teams.
• Lead backlog refinement and prioritize changes based on operational risk, business value, and stabilization needs.
• Provide quality oversight of system integrator deliverables, including configuration, test evidence, and production fixes.
• Own stabilization of customer project and billing processes using severity- and SLA-based triage.
• Monitor recurring errors in project setup, time and cost postings, billing preparation, project closure, and integrated master data.
• Maintain operating procedures, support playbooks, known-error records, and release regression scenarios.
• Drive continuous improvement in project setup cycle time, billing readiness, data quality, and user adoption.

Skills

SAP Project Systems

S/4HANA Cloud

Project lifecycle

Project billing

Revenue recognition

Time & cost capture

Resource management integration

SAP Fiori

ERP go-live support

Education

Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Information Systems, Engineering, or equivalent

Tools

Deltek Replicon

Dayshape

SAP Certification (S/4HANA Cloud PS)

Job description

Job Title: SAP Cloud ERP Professional Services Functional Lead

Location: Chicago, IL or New York City, NY

Onsite Requirements: 10% onsite

Introduction

We are seeking an experienced SAP Cloud ERP Professional Services Functional Lead to own the functional design, configuration, stabilization, and ongoing optimization of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition Professional Services processes for a project-based organization. This role centers on the customer project lifecycle, project billing, time and cost capture, profitability, and operational controls, and involves close partnership with Finance and connected workforce and resource management systems.

Day-to-Day Responsibilities

• Own the post-go-live functional roadmap and configuration backlog for SAP Professional Services and customer project capabilities
• Configure and support customer project structures, stages, work packages, roles, planned effort, cost, and revenue inputs, and lifecycle controls
• Lead functional design for billing preparation, billing plans, billing elements, and billing requests, including handoffs to billing and accounting
• Support project financial planning, visibility into actual costs and revenue, margin analysis, and integration with Finance and Event-Based Revenue Recognition
• Define and maintain project master data standards, templates, derivation rules, validation controls, and governance
• Partner with resource management and time systems so project, role, assignment, budget, and time data are ready for downstream processing
• Analyze production defects tied to customer projects, billing, time and cost postings, master data, workflow, or integrations
• Lead acceptance criteria, test scenarios, regression packs, and business validation for Professional Services changes
• Maintain end-to-end process documentation from project setup through time and cost capture, billing, revenue recognition, and closure
• Drive fit-to-standard decisions and limit unnecessary custom extensions
• Support business teams during billing cycles, project setup peaks, period-end activities, and critical incidents
• Review SAP release changes to assess business impact, test scope, and adoption opportunities
• Coordinate functional dependencies across Finance, Billing, HR/time, resource management, CRM/engagement systems, data, and integration teams
• Lead backlog refinement and prioritize changes based on operational risk, business value, and stabilization needs
• Provide quality oversight of system integrator deliverables, including configuration, test evidence, and production fixes
• Own stabilization of customer project and billing processes using severity- and SLA-based triage
• Monitor recurring errors in project setup, time and cost postings, billing preparation, project closure, and integrated master data
• Maintain operating procedures, support playbooks, known-error records, and release regression scenarios
• Drive continuous improvement in project setup cycle time, billing readiness, data quality, and user adoption

Required Skills & Qualifications

• 8+ years of SAP Project Systems / Professional Services functional experience, including S/4HANA delivery
• Experience with SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition Professional Services and customer projects (hands-on configuration strongly preferred)
• Knowledge of project lifecycle, work packages, project master data, and project financial controls
• Experience with project billing, billing plans, and billing elements
• Experience integrating with Finance/Controlling and Event-Based Revenue Recognition
• Understanding of project-based services economics, including time and cost capture, billing, margin, and revenue recognition dependencies
• Familiarity with time/expense and resource management integration concepts
• Experience with SAP Fiori, testing, defect triage, configuration governance, and release impact assessment
• Production support experience following an ERP go-live
• Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Information Systems, Engineering, or equivalent experience

Preferred Skills & Qualifications

• Experience in consulting, accounting, engineering, legal, or other project-based professional services firms
• Experience integrating SAP with workforce, resource planning, or time systems such as Deltek Replicon and Dayshape
• Current SAP certification aligned to S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition Professional Services, or related implementation training