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Suspense in RMS
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| Suspense is an accounting method used to process receipts and allocate monies received to your revenue accounts. It is the revenue accounts which provide a breakdown of activity for your property, showing what each payment was for. eg of the total money received, xx was for telephone calls.
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| Why is suspense needed?
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| Suspense is a "holding basket" where receipts are held until they can be allocated to accounts. If a guest pays for anything in advance, eg a deposit or there is any other action (such as a reduction/removal of a charge already paid) which means there is a credit balance on the guest's account, RMS does not have an account to allocate that money against. So we need a holding bay.
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| RMS will hold an amount in suspense until it can be allocated against another charge for that guest or a refund is processed. When an account has a credit balance, a coressponding amount wil be held in suspense awaiting allocation.
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| Where charges already exist on an account:
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| Where charges already exist on an account, any receipt will flow straight through suspense and is allocated to the account indicated by the charge.
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| so if an account has charges:
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| and a receipt is raised, the allocation to the accommodation account and the video account is made as soon as the receipt is processed, and the account balance in this case is now zero.
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| The movement in suspense will be zero.
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| Where there are no existing charges on an account:
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| Frequently the first entry in an account will be a receipt, eg a deposit.
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| Once a receipt is raised, the account will go into credit
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| as there is no account to allocate the receipt against, the 350.00 is held in suspense
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| Suspense will have increased by 350
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| Lets follow some movements in suspense:
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| 1 March Mr White pays deposit of 50.00 for June accommodation His account is 50.00 in credit Suspense increased by 50.00
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| 5 June Mr White arrives and his first nights tariff of 100.00 is raised His account is now 50.00 in debit Suspense decreased by 50.00
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| 6 Jume Mr White departed, paying his balance of 50.00 His account is in balance - 0.00 Suspense has not changed
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| Why? 1 March - there were no charges to match the receipt against so the deposit is held in suspense until charges are created.
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| 5 June - A charge of 100 was created and the amount held in suspense was moved to the accommodation account
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| 6 June - The receipt for the balance was matched to the existing outstanding charge and suspense was unaffected.
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| During a normal day suspense may increase or decrease frequently. If Mrs Brown also paid a 100.00 deposit on the same day as Mr White, suspense would have increased by 150.00 - but if Ms Green's account was charged 30 for additional cleaning and she had a credit balance of 100, the end effect on suspense would have been a decrease of 180.00
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| The Cash report shows where receipts have been allocated each day as well as the movement in suspense. On 13 Feb in the example below 1860.75 was allocated across the accounts indicated, including 824.40 which could not be allocated. Whilst room revenue was 829.50 for the day, there may be additional revenue to be allocated once all room charges are raised- and the money held in suspense would be reduced.
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| When will suspense increase?
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| When payments made that day are greater than the monies being allocated to revenue accounts.
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| Because adjustments are flowing in and out of suspense through the day, it is the overall change in levels which is important. The report above has suspense increasing on 13 Feb but decreasing by 118.40 on 14 Feb. This means that on 14 Feb, 118.40 more was allocated from suspense than was added to it over the day.
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