Suspense account

The term one-time account ( Conto - per -Diverse ) ( much more rarely " hinge Account") designated in the records a combined receivables and payables account in the general ledger. This one-time events are collected.

This is an omnibus account, are posted to the payment of and to business partners, for which no separate debtor (customer) or vendor ( supplier ) account is held, or in cases of doubt, where the concrete account initially unknown is.

Banks

Banks unclear postings are posted to CPDs. This particularly applies to payments received, the receiver is not uniquely determined.

Specifies the originator wrong recipient data (for example, a non-existent account number), so the input can not be credited to the recipient's account. In the payment departments of banks, these amounts are therefore initially posted to suspense and tries to determine the recipient.

Usually amounts after a certain time (eg one week) returned to the sender if the receiver can not identify.

Suspense and money laundering

Banks are obliged under the Money Laundering Act, to control the origin of funds. Until the enactment of the Money Laundering Act, it was often the case that a suspense was run as a clearing account to securities accounts. In this way, an allocation of investment income to the beneficial owner was not possible. Today it is not allowed to use a suspense as a clearing account for securities business even as receipt account for payments to prevent money laundering and tax evasion.

• Accounting
• Cashless payments