There are situations when, the accountant is unable to locate the difference in the totals of the Trial Balance and the system requires to close the books of accounts, therefore the accountant at that time can adjust the discrepancy in Trial Balance to a newly opened account known as “Suspense Account”, such that the difference in the Trial Balance has been adjusted temporarily.
Note : If the credit side is short, the account will be credited and if the credit side is more, account will be debited, hence the inclusion of the account leads the balances in the Trial Balance to agree. However, the opening of the Suspense Account does not mean that errors have been removed.
Uses of Suspense Account
(i) It is an account for bookkeeper used to difference on the trial balance pending the discovery of errors; the errors when found are corrected by debiting and crediting the suspense account. Ultimately, the suspense account is nil balance after the proper transfer to the correct accounts.
(ii) It is an account to which one side of the double entry transaction can be posted until its correct destination is known. This one side can be a debit or a credit entry. Example, that a bookkeeper saw a bank receipt of Rs. 10,000 in the company’s bank statement, but due to insufficient information, he does not know whether this money is from a customer who is paying up its outstanding account or it is the receipt for the sale of its fixed assets. Hence, the bookkeeper can temporarily post this transaction into a suspense account until he can discover the true nature of the transaction.
