Checking Availability

In addition to checking the stocks that physically exist in the warehouse (static availability check), available stock can also be checked from the viewpoint of Material Requirements Planning. With the dynamic availability check, planned receipts and issues can also be taken into account. This check enables you to prevent an already reserved quantity from being withdrawn or reserved for another purpose, for example.

For example, today there are 100 pieces of a material in unrestricted-use stock in the warehouse. Thirty pieces of the material are reserved for withdrawal tomorrow, and another 20 pieces are reserved for withdrawal the day after. Consequently, only 50 pieces of the material are available today, because the rest have already been reserved for other purposes. If you tried withdrawing 60 pieces today, the system would display a warning or error message, depending on the configuration.

This type of availability check is used in several applications, for example, in:

• Inventory Management when creating a reservation or entering a goods issue
• Sales and Distribution when creating a sales order
• Production, when creating a production order
• Purchasing when creating a stock transport order

To perform the availability check, the following prerequisites must be fulfilled in the system:

• You must assign a checking to the transaction in Customizing.
• You must maintain a checking group in the material master record (MRP data).
• For the combination of checking group and checking rule, you must have defined the stocks, receipts, and issues that are to be taken into account in the check (in Customizing).
• You must specify the type of message (error, warning, or information) you want the system to display for the movement type in cases of availability and nonavailability (in Customizing).

• The dynamic availability check in SAP S/4HANA considers existing stock, planned receipts, and reservations for material requirements planning.
• It helps prevent double reservations and ensures that only truly available stock can be withdrawn or allocated.
• Availability checks apply across Inventory Management, Sales and Distribution, Production, and Purchasing processes.
• The system setup requires configuration in Customizing and the material master to define checking groups, rules, and system messages.