Rectification of One-Sided Errors through the Suspense Account

A one-sided error, by definition, has thrown the Trial Balance out of agreement, and the difference has already been parked in a Suspense Account. Rectifying such an error therefore always uses the Suspense Account as one side of the correcting journal entry, and the genuinely affected account as the other side — never two 'normal' accounts, since only ONE account was actually wrong.

A particularly tricky case arises when an amount was posted to the CORRECT account but on the WRONG SIDE (e.g., a receipt of ₹500 from a debtor was wrongly posted to the DEBIT of the debtor's account instead of the credit). Here, the correction must do TWO things at once: cancel the wrong entry, AND make the correct entry — which means the correcting amount posted to that account is DOUBLE the original amount, not the original amount itself. For example, an amount of ₹500 wrongly debited when it should have been credited needs a correcting CREDIT of ₹1,000 (₹500 to cancel the wrong debit, plus ₹500 to record the correct credit) — with the other ₹1,000 going to (or from) the Suspense Account.