Document types reflect the different accounting transactions in your organization. Since the document type can be displayed for every line item, you can immediately find out the type of accounting transaction in both document display and line item display. In the following figure, the document types show that there are customer invoices (document type DR), customer payments (document type DZ) and customer credit memos (document type DG). The document type is also used for evaluation purposes.

Document types have already been defined in the standard system. The most important document types are:

To differentiate accounting transactions using the document type, you specify for each document type, what type of account that document can be posted to. Document type AB allows you to post to all accounts. All other document types limit the types of accounts you can post to. Document type DA, for example, only allows you to post to customer (D) and G/L accounts (S).

The document types delivered with the standard system have already been limited to specific types of accounts. You do not have to use these document types. You can modify them or define your own document types.