The AFS-System contains special structures for mapping products and articles and their characteristics (such as sizes, colors, etc.). These special structure concepts (grid values / categories) facilitate the handling of logistic processes at levels below the material master. Beyond that, the AFS-System provides special functions for the sales and distribution processing.

The following figure provides an overview of the sales and distribution processing in the AFS-System:

Sales allows the realization of different business transactions based on sales documents stored in the system. When creating a sales order, you can carry out an availability check to determine whether the desired models / articles / colors or sizes are in stock. This also checks whether the stock is sufficient to fill the order by the desired delivery date. A confirmed delivery date is determined based on the results of the availability check.

The AFS-material requirements planning (AFS MRP) assigns the requirement quantities to the available stock, or creates procurement proposals. For stock that is not available the internal or external procurement (purchase requests or planned orders) are initiated at stock-keeping unit (SKU) level.

Additionally, an allocation run is carried out for AFS-materials, which allows to distribute the customer requirements to existing stock, based on specific rules. In case of a stock shortage, the allocation run provides the best possible distribution for existing stock.

Afterwards, delivery and invoice could be created.