Since, with few exceptions, material data is maintained in both systems, there has to be a way to ensure that the data remains consistent in both systems. Material data that has been transferred from a central R/2 system cannot, therefore, be changed decentrally.

However, this does not apply to data that exists independently in the decentralized R/3 System. For example, the transportation group and loading group do not exist in R/2 but are automatically created in the decentralized R/3 System. This data can be changed decentrally because a change does not affect the data consistency of the two systems.