Can't delete Imbalance account

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 12/17/2015 11:02 AM, Michael Hendry wrote:
> Isn’t the conventional way of dealing with this to set up an account 
> called Expenses:Suspense? To me, the implication of an Orphaned or 
> Imbalanced entry is that there’s been an error in the entry of data, 
> rather than a deferred decision on the proper account for the posting 
> of a transaction. Michael (another one!).

A "suspense" account is indeed traditional, but I have never seen one on 
the expense side. I'll come back to that later.

"Suspense" isn't for items where you know what the account should be 
(but no such account exists). It's an account usually on the income side 
where money arrives but you don't know what for.  Most businesses don't 
leave such checks sitting around undeposited, so deposit with the other 
side of the transaction being "suspense" and then it is somebody's job 
to investigate and resolve all items in suspense.
An example (for my organization) say a check arrived for $50 with no 
indication what for. Was that a donation?  Was that for the sale of two 
books? Was that for the sale of two tee shirts and the giving of a third 
shirt to a volunteer?

The equivalent on the expense side would be say an invoice arrived from 
an unknown vendor for something you don't know was an authorized 
purchase. Or in my case, somebody is submitting a request for 
reimbursement, maybe they just tell me the amount and where purchased 
but forgot to specify what this was (and unclear from receipt). You 
don't need a "suspense" account for that because in THAT situation you 
didn't cut the check. You would investigate first (or at least I would). 
I would send that person an email "You submitted a request for 
reimbursement for a purchase on xx/yy/zz from xyz. What WAS that?" I 
wouldn't simply send them a reimbursement assuming that it was an 
authorized purchase.

BTW, that is a not unusual situation for me. I most cases I can tell 
from the receipt (and simply cut the reimbursement check and enter the 
transaction) but in other cases I can't tell. And at least one or two 
times when there have been many items on the receipt, the person said 
"oops, the abc item was for me personally, strike from the total".

Michael