For your convenience we provide a table of account groups with indication of how they are increased or decreased:

Illustration 45: Summary of debit and credit impacts

T accounts and double-entry system provide accountants with a sophisticated means of recordkeeping. Nevertheless, drawing T accounts is only one step in a sequence of steps accountants take from initiating a transaction to including it into the financial statements. In general, all the steps are as shown below:

Illustration 46: The accounting recording process

First, there should be a document showing that an accounting event took place. Such a document is usually called a source document:

Source document serves as a basis for an accounting entry.  Source documents are what accountants use to record accounting transactions.  Source documents are also called business documents.

Source documents vary.  Some examples of source documents are invoices, material requisition forms, bank statements and credit memos.

Second, source documents are the basis for recording transactions in a chronological order in a journal. Each company has what is called the general journal or the book of original entry:

General journal (book of original entry) contains records about all transactions of an entity. In particular, the journal includes such data as the event date, accounts involved, explanations and amount(s).

In addition to the general journal, an entity may have other journals that relate to specific areas, like a cash journal (includes information on cash transactions only) or a sales journal (includes information about sales only).