Book excerpt

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The book excerpt is used by the commercial agent to control his commission claims. Further control rights are the commission accounting, the book inspection as well as information claims.

Sources of law, basic idea of ​​the legal regulation

The right to be able to request a book excerpt is regulated in Section 87c (2) of the German Commercial Code. This standard corresponds to Article 12, Paragraph 2 of the “Directive of the Council of the EC of December 18, 1986 on the coordination of the legal provisions of the member states relating to independent commercial agents” (86/653 / EEC).

According to the established case law of the Federal Court of Justice and the courts of instance, the book excerpt should give the commercial agent the opportunity to check the commission statements issued to him and thus gain clarity about the commission claims to which he is entitled. A reason for the request is not necessary.

Eligibility requirements

The underlying contractual relationship must be a commercial agency contract. About § 65 an application HGB comes to shop assistants (workers) are: unless employed travelers also receive commissions, they also have a right to excerpt. For example, there is no entitlement for authorized dealers, franchisees or brokers .

The only additional requirement for a claim is that the commercial agent requests an excerpt from the entrepreneur.

Content and form of the book excerpt

To fulfill its purpose, the book excerpt must fully reflect the circumstances relevant to the calculation, amount and due date of the commission, insofar as they can be taken from the company's books. The company's IT is also part of the "books".

The information to be included in the book excerpt in individual cases depends primarily on the commission regulation agreed in the commercial agency contract. Furthermore, the mandatory statutory provisions on commission claims must be observed. Insofar as no contractual provisions have been made, the mandatory statutory provisions on commission claims apply on a subsidiary basis.

The book excerpt must be a clearly understandable, organized overview. A tabular structure is not absolutely necessary - but is generally recommended. If the book excerpt consists of several lists, these must be clearly linked to one another. Sending documents (e.g. copies of orders and invoices) is not enough. From this, the sales agent would first have to create a book excerpt himself. However, the law assigns this task to the company.

All transactions subject to commission are to be shown in the book excerpt, regardless of the status of their processing. The following information must be included in the book excerpt:

  • Name and address of the customer,
  • Customer number (if available),
  • Date of order,
  • Content and scope of the order,
  • Date of delivery or partial deliveries and their scope,
  • Invoices with date and invoice number,
  • Invoice amount,
  • Date of payments and amount of amounts paid,
  • Date of complete settlement,
  • Returns and non-execution of transactions with the date and reason and
  • Maintenance measures taken by the entrepreneur in the event of a cancellation.

A book excerpt can be requested for the non-statute-barred period, i.e. several years depending on the duration of the contract.

Indispensability of the right to a book excerpt

The right of the commercial agent to extract the book cannot be contractually restricted or even excluded. Even if the commercial agent accepts commission statements and payments for years without being contradicted, it does not yet follow that he waives his right to request commission and to request a book excerpt for this purpose. However, if the commercial agent expressly acknowledges the correctness and completeness of the commission statements, there is no entitlement to a book extract.

Practical problems

Many companies have significant problems creating a book excerpt that meets legal requirements. One of the reasons for this is that many IT systems can deliver the necessary data, but manage them separately (for example, order management, invoice accounting and - again separately - commission accounting). Linking the basically available data to an orderly list that contains all commission-relevant data is therefore often difficult and - if at all - can only be achieved with considerable staffing and cost. Despite this often considerable effort, the company is regularly denied the objection of unreasonableness.

Other reasons for the considerable practical problems when creating a book excerpt are, for example, that

  • the brokered transactions are, as is typical for the industry, mass transactions that entail a corresponding volume of the book excerpt, or
  • the commission system agreed in the commercial agency is so complicated that many individual details have to be included in the book excerpt.

The difficulties that companies sometimes experience when creating a book excerpt can mean that the entitlement to a book excerpt is sometimes used as a means of printing and threatening to enforce other goals (such as the payment of a compensation claim ). However, the limit to illegal assertion is only very rarely reached, since the claim to a book excerpt is a legal and indispensable right of information to which the commercial agent is entitled.

literature

  • Küstner / Thume, The compensation claim of the commercial agent: goods representatives, insurance and building society representatives, 8th edition 2007, ISBN 978-3-8005-1459-5 .

Web links