Opening balances Sage - suspense account

Emma1708

Could someone help me please, its probably something really obvious but my mind is blank.

Sage was started to be used from the new accounts year (quickbooks previously)

I am doing bank recs and there are some supplier payments made and some customer payments received for items before the current year and also that are not on sage at all. Opening balances are needed on the individual accounts to reconcile the bank but this has left a huge suspense account figure and I dont know where to put it!!


Thank you

sdv

Emma1708 wrote: »

Could someone help me please, its probably something really obvious but my mind is blank.

Sage was started to be used from the new accounts year (quickbooks previously)

I am doing bank recs and there are some supplier payments made and some customer payments received for items before the current year and also that are not on sage at all. Opening balances are needed on the individual accounts to reconcile the bank but this has left a huge suspense account figure and I dont know where to put it!!


Thank you

Ideally when taking on the balances on a new computer system, you should have taken the book (closing a/c ) balance of the bank and added on that the total of unpresented cheques and taken away any credits not yet on the bank statement. (opposite side posted to take on balance)

Then on the new computer/software post the payment of unpresented cheques and receipts of un-received credits. The opposite side to be posted on the take on balance account.

This will then bring the opening bank account to the required closing balance from the previous accounting software.

this will also sort the probelm of bank reconcilliation, unpresented cheques and credit not yet on the bank statement.

I don't know how the balance in your suspense a/c arose? But hopefully the above explanations may help

Did the balance on the suspense a/c arise because of posting of unpresented cheques and un received credits?

columbia

Hi

I assume your opening balance postings were to reflect the outstanding amounts owed to your suppliers and from your customers.

You need to do a journal out of suspense to either the debtors or the creditors control accounts to reflect the true amount that now needs to show in these accounts.

This will then leave the adjustments that you have done to the bank and the individual supplier/customer accounts alone, and will show the figures on the balance sheet that you are owed or owe out.

Hope this make sense!

Emma1708

Thank you for the replies. The balances arose when i set up the individual supplier and customer accounts and put in the opening balances in there so that when I entered a receipt/payment to reconcile the bank I could allocate this to the actual account

sdv

Emma1708 wrote: »

Thank you for the replies. The balances arose when i set up the individual supplier and customer accounts and put in the opening balances in there so that when I entered a receipt/payment to reconcile the bank I could allocate this to the actual account

when posting the opening balance on the customer's and supplier's accounts, did you post them when opening an account or did you post the opening balances by posting purchase/sales invoices?

Emma1708

I posted them when opening the account - the invoices are from the previous financial year

coojee

Sounds like the problem is that you've only entered a partial opening balance. Normally when you move to a new computer system (or go computerised from manual) you would enter either a full opening trial balance or nothing. So this would include things like fixed assets, bank balance, debtors, creditors, stock, capital etc. If you only enter the debtors and creditors then the accounts won't balance. The only way to get rid of the suspense account is to enter the rest of the opening trial balance.

sdv

Emma1708 wrote: »

I posted them when opening the account - the invoices are from the previous financial year

This now explains why you have a big balance in your suspense a/c 9998

when you post the take-on opening balance while opening a customer account via accounts set-up, the debtors control account will be debited and the suspense a/c will be credited with that take on balance amount.

and when you open a suppeliers a/c, the creditors control a/c will be credited and the suspense a/c will be debited

therefore the big figure in the suspense a/c is the difference between opening debtors and opening creditors.

In effect what you have done is just taken on the opening balance of debtors and creditors with opposite entries posted to the suspense account.

you will still be required to post the opening balances on the sage, except for the debtors and crediotors. You may open a take-on balance a/c, (9999) and you will then find that there will be a balance left on that a/c that will be equal to your suspense a/c.

transfer the suspense a/c balannce to take-on balance a/c and both accounts will be cleared.

I hope this helps