What is the abbreviation for debit and credit?
The abbreviation for debit is dr. and the abbreviation for credit is cr.
Having dr. as the abbreviation for debit appears unusual, since there is no “r” in the spelling of the word debit. Apparently the abbreviation dr. is associated with the Latin or Italian word used more than 500 years ago when double entry accounting was first documented.
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There are a few possible explanations. One theory asserts that the DR and CR come from the Latin past participles of debitum and creditum which are “debere” and “credere”, respectively.
Another theory is that DR stands for “debit record” and CR stands for “credit record”.
Finally, some believe that DR notation is short for “debtor” and CR is short for “creditor”.