Webclass 111: Finding fraud in suspense accounts

Q1. Are suspense accounts, generally speaking, clearly labelled in the Chart Of Accounts?

No, they can have all different types of names/ text descriptions

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Yes, they are usually flagged as suspense accounts in the Chart of Accounts

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Q2. Do suspense accounts usually have open item management?

Yes, they usually should, so that the transaction line entered to the suspense account can be linked to the line that is entered when the item is re-categorised

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No, they do not require open item management because they are not considered to be reconciliation accounts

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Q3. Could A/R Clearing be considered a suspense account?

Yes, A/R clearing is sometimes used as the name of the account that is posted to temporarily when it is not immediately clear which customer invoices to net-off against the received payent

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No, A/R clearing is an automatic account and is posted to automatically when the system receives a payment, so it cannot be considered to be a suspense account

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Q4. If the supplier delivers an invoice, but we are not sure which cost center/ cost account the invoice should be booked against, might we book it to a suspense account?

Yes

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No – we would rather book it to a GR/IR account

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Q5. When would we typically use a GR/IR account?

When the supplier delivers some goods, but we do not yet have the supplier invoice, so we post to the GR/IR account whilst waiting for the supplier invoice

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When the supplier delivers some goods, but we are not sure which sales order they relate to

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Q6. Is it more interesting to do an analysis of the volume of posting per day during the period to suspense accounts, or the balance of the suspense account over time?

It is more interesting to look at the balance over time so that we can see if the suspense account balance is growing (and so being used to park illigitimate transactions)

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It is more interesting to look at the value of postings per day because a high-value posting to a suspense account could indicate a fraudulent entry

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Q7. Why might you want to look at the age of the suspense account?

Because if an item is posted to a suspense account, it is supposed to be posted there temporarily, so it should not stay there for a long time

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Because if items are ageing in the suspense account then there should be a dunning process to follow-up with customers

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Q8. When items are entered to a suspense account that relates to a 3rd party, would we expect the 3rd party to be mentioned in the entry?

Yes the 3rd party should be mentioned, in order to increase transparency of the posting

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No, it is not necessary to mention the 3rd party because the transaction will be cleared to the 3rd party document

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Q9. Would we expect the journal entry accounting schemes to suspense accounts to be quite standard?

Yes, if we see unusual accounting schemes to a suspense account then this would be suspicious, for example, we don't expect to see debit customer, credit GR/IR

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No, by definition, suspense accounts are temporary accounts in which we could find lots of varying accounting schemes

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Q10. If we don’t have the list of suspense accounts from accounting, how can we find them out ourselves?

We can use a dashboard that shows the list of accounts on debit and the list of accounts on credit per journal entry and we can look at which accounts are posted opposite supplier, customer and inventory. Then when we identify those accounts that are type Ledger but not P&L, and that are not themselves a reconciliation account, we can look at the account text description to see if it sounds like a suspense account, such as "clearing", "to be received", "not yet received", etc

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We can search on the text description in the chart of accounts table for the word "suspense" and then we can filter the general ledger on all journal entries that are for suspense accounts. We can also ask the accountants to give us the list of suspense accounts that they use.

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Q11. Why might we want to classify the accounts in the general ledger, using the different flags form the ERP/Accounting system?

Because this helps us, by deduction, to identify those accounts that could be suspense accounts (for example, if the account is not specifically flagged as being used for provision for doubtful receivables, or if the account is flagged as a P&L account – whereas suspsense accounts will be Balance Sheet accounts)

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Because this helps us to see which accounts are suspense accounts because suspense accounts have a special flag to indicate them in SAP

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Q12. Why might I not want to only look at the result of FBL3N in SAP, when looking at suspense accounts?

Because FBL3N will not show me the counterparty accounts, meaning which account was debited or credited when I credited or debited my suspense account

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Because FBL3N shows me the deatil of lines to supplier reconciliation accounts only

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Q13. Can I calculate the balance over-time of my suspense account using only the general ledger table?

If I am in SAP ECC, I cannot because I would need to know the carry forward balance at the beginning of the year, which is shown in the Trial Balance table (GLT0)

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Yes, in ECC, I only need the general ledger table and then I can do a running total per account in there, sorted on date and with the starting value being 0

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Q14. What is the principle of the cookie jar fraud case?

The suspense account is used to post debit loss, credit suspense account in period N. Then in period N+1, when the department want to spend something, they post debit suspense account, credit supplier invoice. Therefore, putting the cost in period N but being able to use it in period N+1

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The suspense account is debited and credited in the period N and then in period N+1, since all of the postings are used up, they can be re-debited and credited again, in order to obtain funds for a special project

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Webclass 111: Finding fraud in suspense accounts

Webclass 111: Finding fraud in suspense accounts

admin June 9, 2026

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