Accreditation to teach specific classes.
For example, the college I work at is covered by SACS. With just an AS degree and a metric ton of experience, I can teach IT courses that don't count towards a BA/BS degree at a "real" University. Linux administration, Advanced Java (but not intro to programming w/ java), MySQL, etc. They qualify for vocational certs and AS degrees though.
In order to be able to teach specific courses - IE, "CGS1000" titled as "Intro to college computing" which DOES go towards AAs and 4 year+ universities, I have to either have a masters or terminal degree in a specific named field, or have X number of hourse (18 IIRC) of post-grad course work in a specific list of courses. It is that last bit that requires a transcript, and it requires someone to evaluate the transcript, compare substitution codes by FICE codes (to see that your schools ABC123 mapped to what SACS calls ABC101), etc.
A good example of this is someone I work with who has a BS in software engineering and a masters in project management but he can't teach the CGS1000 course because he didn't have any educational technology related courses at the masters level.
Edit - explanation of terms
SACS - Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Accreditation body for SE USA.
AS - Associates of Science degree. 2 year terminal degree (nursing, X-Ray tech, Resp. therapy, etc). Minimal gen-ed stuff, doesn't go to a University to become part of a higher degree
AA - Associate of Arts. First half of a BA or BS degree, gened type stuff.
FICE - Federal Interagency Committee on Education - defines a nationwide list of code numbers to reference schools and/or courses for cross-institution communication of academic info like transcripts, etc.