1. Provider and subject matter
The provider of the program Aktenlage is Timo Britz. The postal address, e-mail address and other mandatory information can be found in the legal notice.
Aktenlage is a program for Microsoft Windows with which paper documents can be scanned, separated into individual documents, indexed by content and filed as PDF files. The program runs entirely on the user’s computer.
These terms apply to the provision and use of the program. The purchase contract itself is additionally governed by the information on the product page and by the withdrawal policy.
2. What the program transmits
Aktenlage transmits no documents, no content and no usage data to the provider or to third parties. Scanning, text recognition, separation, filing and search run without any network connection.
The optional language model communicates via a network interface with a service that, by default, runs on the same computer (127.0.0.1). This address can be changed in the settings. If a different computer is entered there, the recognised document text is transmitted to it; the user is then responsible for this.
The only outbound connection that the program establishes on its own initiative is the retrieval of a public file on timobritz.de, in order to determine whether a newer version is available. No identifier, no licence number and no count is transmitted in the process; nothing is downloaded. The retrieval takes place at most once a week and can be switched off in the settings. For technical reasons, this creates a server log entry containing the IP address on the website provider’s side; details can be found in the privacy policy.
Only at the push of a button does the program download, once, the optional language model (about 5 GB) via the bundled Ollama service from Ollama’s public model registry. In the process, this provider receives the IP address and the name of the model; documents and licence data are not transmitted.
3. Conclusion of the contract, price and delivery
The presentation of the program on the product page does not constitute a binding offer. A message sent via the form or by e-mail is a non-binding enquiry. In response, you will receive by e-mail an offer with an invoice, these terms of use and the withdrawal policy. The contract is concluded when you accept the offer by e-mail.
The price is €49 as a final price for one licence certificate for major version 1. As a small business owner within the meaning of § 19 UStG (German VAT Act), I do not show VAT. No further costs arise; there is no shipping. Payment is made by bank transfer after receipt of the invoice.
The licence certificate is delivered as a text file by e-mail to the address you have provided, no later than two working days after receipt of payment. The program itself is available for download on the product page independently of this and can be tested in trial mode before purchase.
I do not store the contract text in a form that is accessible to you. You will receive these terms and the withdrawal policy with the offer by e-mail and can save or print them. The contract language is German.
4. Licence
With the acquisition of a licence certificate, a simple, perpetual and non-exclusive right of use is granted. It applies to all releases of the acquired major version, for example to all releases 1.x. A new major version (2.0) is not included.
- The licence applies to one person and their own computers. For businesses, professional offices and practices, it applies per workstation.
- Passing the licence certificate on to third parties is not permitted. However, in the event of a permanent waiver of one’s own use, the licence may be transferred in its entirety.
- There is no activation and no server that unlocks anything. The licence certificate is checked on the user’s own computer without a network connection.
- Reverse engineering of the program is permitted to the extent permitted by law; §§ 69d and 69e UrhG (German Copyright Act) remain unaffected.
5. Trial mode
Without a licence certificate, the program runs in trial mode. In this state, 50 pages may be newly added to the archive in total. All other functions remain available without restriction.
6. Access to your own documents
Access to documents already filed never depends on a licence. Searching, viewing, printing and exporting also work without a licence certificate, with an invalid certificate and after use has ended.
Moreover, the archive is not tied to the program: next to each PDF file there is a readable text file containing all the captured details, from which the search index can be completely rebuilt.
7. Updates
For the period that can be expected for a program of this type and purpose, updates will be provided that are necessary to maintain conformity with the contract, including security updates. For consumers, this obligation is governed by §§ 327 et seq. BGB (German Civil Code). Information about an available update is provided in the program and on the product page; the user decides whether to install it.
Updates within the acquired major version are included without further payment.
8. Defects
The statutory provisions apply. With regard to consumers, the rules on contracts for digital products (§§ 327 et seq. BGB) apply in particular. These rights are not restricted by the following sections.
9. What is expressly not warranted
The following points describe what the program does and what it does not do. They are not exclusions of liability but a description of the agreed characteristics. Insofar as they deviate from the objective requirements, I will point this out separately in the offer; by accepting the offer, you expressly agree to these deviations.
9.1 Deadlines are suggestions
The program reads deadlines from the recognised text and displays them together with the verbatim source passage. It is not warranted that all deadlines will be found or that deadlines found are calculated correctly. Statutory deadlines, deemed service rules and rules on public holidays and weekends are not modelled. Every deadline must be checked against the original document. The program does not provide legal or tax advice.
9.2 Text recognition, separation and classification
Text recognition, document separation, categorisation and sender recognition are prone to errors. The program presents every document for confirmation; confirmation is given exclusively by the user. No particular recognition rate is warranted.
9.3 Blank page detection
Pages detected as blank are placed in quarantine and are not deleted. The detection is not infallible. The quarantine must be checked before anything is deleted.
9.4 Data backup
The program does not replace a data backup. The included functions for backing up to a file and for mirroring to a network drive are copy functions and not a backup strategy. The user remains responsible for backing up the archive.
9.5 Retention obligations
Aktenlage is built for one’s own documents. It is not warranted that the filing meets the requirements for audit-proof archiving, for substitutive scanning or for the GoBD (German principles for the proper keeping of electronic books and records). Anyone who wishes to replace paper receipts for tax purposes needs a separate assessment of their own for this.
10. Liability
Liability is governed by the statutory provisions. Liability is unlimited
- in cases of intent and gross negligence,
- for damage resulting from injury to life, body or health,
- where a guarantee has been assumed, and
- insofar as mandatory statutory provisions impose liability.
In the event of a slightly negligent breach of an essential contractual obligation, the fulfilment of which makes the proper performance of the contract possible in the first place and on compliance with which the other party may rely, liability is limited to the damage that was foreseeable at the time the contract was concluded and is typical for this type of contract. Otherwise, liability for slight negligence is excluded.
Loss of data
Liability for loss of data is limited to the amount that would have been required to restore the data had you backed up your data regularly and in a manner appropriate to the risk. This limitation does not apply in the cases of unlimited liability mentioned above.
The program points out in several places that it does not replace a data backup, and it does not delete anything of its own accord: pages detected as blank go into quarantine, detected duplicates are reported, and next to every filed file there is a readable companion file from which the search index can be completely rebuilt.
Claims under the German Product Liability Act (Produkthaftungsgesetz) remain unaffected. Pursuant to § 14 of the Product Liability Act, they can neither be excluded nor limited in advance. The same applies to mandatory rights of consumers.
11. Third-party components used
Aktenlage uses free third-party software, including Tesseract OCR (Apache-2.0), OpenCV (Apache-2.0), qpdf and pikepdf (Apache-2.0 and MPL-2.0 respectively), pypdfium2 (BSD-3 and Apache-2.0), SQLite (public domain) as well as Python and associated libraries (PSF, MIT, BSD). The full licence texts are supplied with the program. The optional language model is licensed under the Apache-2.0 licence and is not shipped with the program.
12. Changes to these terms
A contract already concluded is governed by the version agreed at the time the contract was concluded. Later versions apply only to contracts concluded thereafter.
13. Applicable law and dispute resolution
German law applies, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). With regard to consumers, the mandatory provisions of the state in which they have their habitual residence remain unaffected.
I am neither willing nor obliged to participate in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.