Balance remains on Suspense Account after entering opening balances

• Not all nominal opening balances have been entered.
• Incorrect values have been entered.
• Opening balances have been entered incorrectly, for example, a debit has been entered as a credit or vice versa.
• After entering customer and supplier opening balances the trial balance wasn't cleared down and nominal opening balances have been entered for the debtors and creditors control accounts.
• After entering customer and supplier opening balances the trial balance was cleared down and nominal opening balances haven't been entered for the debtors and creditors control accounts.
• Transactions have been posted to the Suspense Control Account that don't relate to opening balances.

Useful reports

There are a number of reports which can help identify the cause of the balance.

Trial Balance

Run the Trial Balance for the period prior to entering live transactions in Sage Accounts. For example, if the you start entering live transactions in July, you should have entered all opening balance transactions dated on or prior to the end of June.

Compare this trial balance to the trial balance that was used to enter the opening balances.

• Have all nominal opening balances been entered?
• Do the balances agree and have they been entered correctly, for example entered as a debit or credit?
• Are the Debtors Control Account (1100) and Creditors Control Account (2100) included?
  
  

  Debtors / Creditors Control Accounts	Reason
  Not included on the Trial Balance	Customer and supplier opening balances have been entered and the Trial Balance cleared. Solution - Post opening balances to the Debtors and Creditors Control Accounts.
  Double the value they should be	Customer and supplier opening balances have been entered, the Trial Balance hasn't been cleared and nominal opening balances have been entered for the Debtors and Creditors Control Accounts. Solution - Post additional opening balances to correct the Debtors and Creditors Control Accounts.

Nominal Activity

Running the Nominal Activity report for the Suspense Control Account, normally 9998, has both advantages and disadvantages:

• Each opening balance appears individually - This is useful if you want to tick off the balances that have been entered. However, Suspense balances are normally caused by nominal opening balance issues and so the report contains a lot of customer and supplier transaction information that isn't needed.
• The opposite transaction appears - The suspense account shows the opposite posting for each opening balance, for example, if you post an opening balance debit, the credit is posted to the suspense account.

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