Suspense

Now I'm going to let you in on a secret if you promise not to take advantage of it. If you are making all these entries and they don't balance, do this: first, check the number they don't balance by - maybe you just left out an entry. Divide that number by two and see if anything becomes obvious. Divide it by nine and if it divides cleanly and evenly by nine, that means you have transposed an entry somewhere - maybe you said 765 instead of 756. IF you have tried everything you can think of, and you have just got to turn your computer off and go home, put the remainder that won't balance in suspense. Then, while you're out of the system, look at all your entries, all your notes, and figure out the problem. Come back in, make the correcting entry, and take it back out of suspense by making the opposite entry you did before. If you had to credit suspense to make things balance, this time debit it - or you'll drive yourself even crazier.

Suspense may end up with little bits and pieces of numbers - but it should never be allowed to get large. $1.31, you can let go. $500, and you'd better get serious about finding out what that is. Most great bookkeepers will never leave a balance in suspense, and many don't even use it - they just don't quit until the transaction balances.

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This page last modified: 11 Mar 2008