Suspense Account: The Complete Guide + Examples

Accordingly, there should be a daily measurement of the balance in the suspense account, which the controller uses as the trigger for ongoing investigations. Both suspense accounts and clearing accounts are used to temporarily record transactions, until they can be permanently assigned. Suspense accounts, however, are more typically used when there is some question about the transaction that needs to be resolved.

Errors are rectified by debiting the correct account and crediting the Suspense account. Similarly, when a correct account is credited, the Suspense account is debited. When all the rectified entries are recorded into a suspense account, it should not be left with any balance. If the suspense account is showing a balance, it means that some errors still exist. If the Suspense Account shows a debit balance, it is taken to the asset side of the Balance Sheet, whereas if it shows a credit balance, it is taken to the liability side of the Balance Sheet.

Example #4 – Trial Balance

Otherwise, a company is issuing financial statements that contain unidentified transactions, and which are therefore incorrect. A general ledger is where a business records its assets and liabilities on an ongoing basis, broken into separate categories or accounts. Suspense accounts are used for assets or liabilities that require further clarification before they can be assigned a permanent place in the ledger. When you get the information you need, reverse the suspense account entry and make an entry in the permanent account. This closes out the suspense account and posts the transaction to the correct account.

• At that point, the suspense account should achieve a balance of zero dollars.
• When you find out the invoice, close the suspense account and move the amount to the correct account.
• The purpose of the suspense account is to have an account specifically for miscellaneous or unclassified transactions.
• At times, all the required details for a particular transaction are not available but it still needs to be recorded in order to keep the accounting books updated.

A https://www.bookstime.com/ will be managed by the finance team and serve as a catch-all for unknown amounts. The purpose of a suspense account is to hold amounts that cannot be categorised, so it would not be possible for each department to have a suspense account. If you could identify the department, you would not need to place the payment in a suspense account. Finally, internal bookkeeping errors, such as overstated or understated balances, duplicate entries, or incomplete or partial entries are recorded in the suspense account until the error can be adjusted. Companies come to BlackLine because their traditional manual accounting processes are not sustainable.

Use a Suspense Account for Questionable Transactions

You might be unsure about which department of your business to charge, so you place the amount in a suspense account. Let’s say you receive money from a customer called John for delivering him goods without an invoice. A company generates many transactions over the course of its operations. It can sometimes happen that the transactions might have missing information, or incorrect data have been entered on record. But a company must record every transaction, and in such circumstances, Suspense Account is used.

Also, enter the same amount with an opposite entry in another account. List the https://www.bookstime.com/articles/suspense-account under “Other Assets” on your trial balance sheet. After you make corrections, close the suspense account so that it’s no longer part of the trial balance.

Do I need to close my suspense account?

Suspense accounts are important in accounting because they help filter out transactions that cannot be identified at the time of recording. These accounts help to keep the ledger records clean and error-free. These accounts work as a temporary location to store unknown transactions, and once the amount is determined correctly, it can be moved to the regular ledger account.