The method involves measuring data of a sheet material first being detected by means of a sensor, the sensor then deriving one or more measuring results from the data. Using a sorting tree a sorting class for the sheet material is derived from the measuring results of the sheet material. In each sorting node of the sorting tree a domain is fixed for at least one measuring result. The domains of a measuring result in a sorting node are selected so that they are either a subdomain or equal to the domain of the corresponding measuring result of the assigned, higher sorting node. The sheet material is transported to a destination in accordance with the derived sorting class for the sheet material.