At MNO Inc., a customer payment of $2,500 was received for an invoice that had disputed charges. The use of a mortgage suspense account helps ensure that payments are not misapplied or remain unaccounted for while processing. It serves as a safeguard that keeps funds in a known location until all the details can be sorted out and the payments can be accurately applied to the mortgage as intended. Writers use suspense to put readers on the edge of their seats. It’s this element of a story that encourages the readers to keep reading.

I was reading by age four and some of my first favorites were Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew. I grew up in southern Arizona and spent my summers trekking across two miles of hot desert to our local library. I still remember the sweet relief of entering the cool, dim foyer and the smell of old paper and library paste. The reader may also be tantalized as an impending event is gradually unfolded.

The necessity for a suspense account stems from the inability to identify the appropriate ledger account for the transaction to be recorded. Suspense is a literary device that creates tension and anticipation by withholding key narrative details. As the accounting period closes, any lingering entries in the suspense account must be scrutinized. Remaining balances should be justified and documented, such as cases where pending documentation from a third party delays resolution.

• They ensure that you account for all transactions accurately in your books.
• If they can make it through the most suspenseful part of the story then they’ll be rewarded with an event that relieves the tension and reveals something about the nature of the narrative.
• In our video analysis of this opening scene below, we breakdown Tarantino’s directing style and the elements of suspense that Tarantino uses to keep the audience completely hooked.
• We’ve seen that suspense is all about anticipation, making your reader look forward to projected events with some kind of emotion—pleasure or dread.

An example of a story with progressive complications that keep ratcheting the suspense to ever-increasing levels is the Mel Gibson movie Ransom. The “simple” kidnap plot goes sideways and with every twist, a happy outcome seems more and more unlikely. It leads the reader forward through twists and curves, ever beckoning toward a satisfying resolution. It’s a bit difficult to hold in your hand and look squarely on the face of it, but this only adds to the mystique and allure of suspense. When you think about what’s at stake and how suspense keeps a reader eager to know the outcome around those stakes, you realize that suspense is a many-splendored thing.

Example of Using a Suspense Account

This powerful tool allows financial teams to monitor progress, quickly identify discrepancies, and ensure no transaction is overlooked. By providing a detailed trail of records for each transaction, including the date, time, and user information, it supports organizations during audits. The brokerage suspense account is essential for managing the fluid nature of investments and transactions. It provides a buffer that safeguards both the investor’s assets and the brokerage firm’s integrity until the proper allocations can be made. A company generates many transactions over the course of its operations. It can sometimes happen that the transactions might have missing information or incorrect data have been entered on the record.

Closing the suspense account

I think of surprise and suspense like my two favorite flavors of ice cream. It permeates your senses and triggers your pleasure centers, melting in a slow release of delicious tension. This provides a quick fizzle of shock, but it sputters out quickly. You can be sure George immediately layered in some suspense to keep her readers what is suspense engaged. In a thriller, you’ll need to make sure your reader knows what kind of disaster your protagonist is racing to prevent and the consequences that will rock their world if they fail.

• Tell me you don’t feel that nail-biting grip when you watch this trailer for Ransom, or when you read the back cover for a mystery, thriller, or suspense book.
• Just as readers will remain loyal to a writer who offers well-constructed, suspenseful plots, they are likely—as are editors—to reject one who resorts to trickery.
• When the trial balance does not tally due to unknown discrepancies, a suspense account is used to balance the books temporarily.

It’s true that crime novels are the most likely to be very suspenseful, but we need it in every type of book, to keep the reader engaged. When you record uncertain transactions in permanent accounts, you might have incorrect balances. Suspense accounts help you avoid recording transactions in the wrong accounts.

Once you understand what suspense is, you’ll see there’s no mystery why the suspense genres have become so dramatically popular over the past decades. And also why they show every sign of continuing to attract a large audience. Suspense may be one of the trickiest literary terms to define. In this article, we’ll pin down a working definition of suspense and discuss what distinguishes it from curiosity and surprise. Another means for creating suspense is to use the objective viewpoint in which the story is told, not through the mind and feelings of a major character, but only by what he says and does. Suspense is the element of both fiction and some nonfiction that makes the reader uncertain about the outcome.

The purpose of suspense account entries is to temporarily hold uncategorized transactions. Close the account after moving the entry to the correct permanent account. You might receive a partial payment from a customer and be unsure about which invoice they’re paying. Hold the partial payment in a suspense account until you contact the customer.