AFS to SAP Retail Interface Overview 

Purpose

The AFS to SAP Retail interface is meant to facilitate the sharing of information between two complementary SAP systems:

·        An Apparel & Footwear Solution (AFS) which is an SAP Customer Solution, created to enhance standard SAP components in order to meet the unique needs of the apparel and footwear industry. Its functionalities were incorporated into the world-class features of the SAP system. The result is a comprehensive solution for apparel and footwear industry catering to its specific logistic needs.

·        A standard SAP Retail system which is a completely integrated retailing system. It provides the functions necessary for modeling business processes in a Retail company. The business process area “Retailing” comprises the procurement, storage, distribution, and sales of merchandise. SAP Retail supports both Wholesale and Retail scenarios.

Combining Strengths

The strength of SAP Retail lies in distribution while the AFS strength lies mostly in the manufacturing of size-dependent products, as practiced in the fashion industry. For this reason, AFS has a supplying role for the Retail companies. These two types of companies have a Customer-Supplier relationship. This interface considers the AFS system as a supplier of the SAP Retail system and the latter as a customer for the AFS company.

The data to be shared consists of materials and their prices. In SAP terms, this means that AFS materials are sent to the SAP Retail system with their prices. This allows the exchange of business documents such as Purchase Orders from the SAP Retail system to the AFS system, and their following documents (Shipping Notifications and Invoices).

The two systems treat information differently and have distinct databases. However, these differences are not apparent to the end users, and, from their point of view, SAP Retail and AFS databases mirror one another, due to the almost constant flow of information between the two systems. Data exchange using IDocs that travel back and forth to carry information from one system to another. The frequency at which these IDocs commute can vary and is set upon implementation, according to the specific needs of the organizations involved, thus allowing these organizations to make the best of both sets of functionalities.

For a detailed description of the various steps involved in the relationship between AFS and SAP Retail, including a graphic overview of the interaction between those two systems and technical information regarding the actual data exchange, click here.