Impacts of the New Civil Code into Financial Statements – Financial Reporting of Earnest

The New civil code in the Czech Republic re-implemented earnest into legislation. This article handles with this instrument – substance of earnest, its functions which are important for the decision on accounting treatment of earnest (proof, secure and penalize). Also distinction between earnest and a common prepayment (provision) and polemics on what could be the substance of an earnest have been made. A method of combining current actual resources with historical resources esp. from the 19th century has been chosen to comprise maximum knowledge and experience with earnest from that times because of lack of useful actual information. This kind of a comprehensive analysis is inevitable to describe all the possibilities and qualities important for the decision on accounting treatment, which means financial reporting of earnest in all its forms and with all its functions. That is the main goal of this article.