Material determination enables the automatic substitution of materials in sales documents during sales order processing. For example, during the course of a sales promotion, the system can, during sales order entry, automatically substitute a material that has promotional packaging. A consumer product may have a special wrapper for, for example, the Christmas season. Using material determination, the system substitutes the material only during the specified period.

The following graphic illustrates the determination of a promotional product in the sales order.

In addition, you can use material determination if you want the system to automatically substitute, for example:

• customer-specific product numbers with your own material numbers

• International Article Numbers (EANs) with your own material numbers

• Substituting discontinued materials with newer materials