Suspense Account

A temporary account used to force a trial balance to balance if there is only a small discrepancy (or if an account's balance is simply wrong, and you don't know why). A typical example would be a small error in petty cash. In this case a transfer would be made to a suspense account to balance the cash account. Once the person knows what happened to the money, a transfer entry will be made in the journal to credit or debit the suspense account back to zero and debit or credit the correct account.

Updated On: 04.04.01