A buckle plate device for a folding machine comprises a buckle plate (10) and a sheet stopping means for stopping a sheet (24) running into the buckle plate (10) in the intake direction, wherein the sheet stopping means is formed by a clamping means (26) which clamps the incoming sheet (24) in order to stop it and preferably automatically releases the clamping at the onset of tractive forces of the subsequent rollers. Hereby a buckle plate device is provided which requires little space and makes it possible to fold sheets with comparably low noise development without a mechanical stop in a sheet-edge controlled manner or in a print-image controlled manner at a high sheet transport speed.