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Trial Balance and Suspense accounts understanding 2

Forums › Ask ACCA Tutor Forums › Ask the Tutor ACCA FA – FIA FFA › Trial Balance and Suspense accounts understanding 2

  • This topic has 1 reply, 2 voices, and was last updated 12 years ago by John Moffat.
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  • February 8, 2014 at 11:44 am #156806
    Anonymous
    Inactive
    • Topics: 17
    • Replies: 52
    • ☆☆

    Question 1)

    Clanger‘s trial balance did not balance and a suspense account was opened to restore equality.
    lt was discovered that:

    1). telephone expenses of $673 had been entered in the telephone account as $763;
    2). a purchase invoice of $2,340 had been entered in the purchases day book as $3,240; and
    3.) discounts received of $264 had been debited to the discounts allowed account.

    What was the original balance on the suspense account?

    The correct answer is: $618 credit.
    Item 1 means that total debits were overstated by $90.
    Item 2 leads to compensating errors in the purchases and payables accounts.
    Item 3 means that total debits were overstated by 2 * $264 = $528.

    Question 2)

    Which of the following errors could result in a suspense account being required to ‘balance‘ the trial balance?

    A Payments to suppliers of $647 recorded as $674 in the payables ledger.
    B Supplier’s invoice for $32 recorded as $23 in the purchases account.
    C One page omitted from the purchase day book.
    D Cash received from credit customers treated as a cash sale.

    Answer is B

    My question

    Why have they not included error “2” in question 1) when in question 2) “B” is the correct answer??
    Also why if the figures are different are the errors compensating?

    February 8, 2014 at 12:13 pm #156828
    John Moffat
    Keymaster
    • Topics: 57
    • Replies: 54835
    • ☆☆☆☆☆

    In question 1, since the error was in the purchase day book, it means that the total in the day book will have been wrong. However the same total will have been posted to both the payables account and the purchases account. Both balances will therefore be wrong, but the trial balance would still balance and so no effect on the suspense account.

    In question 2, B states specifically that one figure has been entered incorrectly in the purchases account. It does not say that it was entered wrongly in the day book or (therefore) that the figure in the payables account is wrong.
    (However, it is not a very good question because since they are using a day book they would be entering the total – not one individual invoice – in the purchases account. I don’t know where you found it.)

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