In the submenu item Data or Data & Plan of a project you can see general project data that you specified when creating it:

When a “user with additional rights” creates a project, he or she is automatically assigned to this project as project manager.

Here you will find all the data that was entered when creating the project (the " Plan " block is only included in the ZEP Professional version):

A project is uniquely identified by its short form. The short form can be any combination of letters and numbers.

A detailed project name can be entered in the Name field.

Note: In the selection lists, e.g. in project time recording, you will always see the complete short form of the projects, but usually not the full name.

(Only with the Departments module) Specify which department this project belongs to. This project property can be used to filter in project planning. It is also the basis for the department evaluations under Departments>Evaluations.

The current project status is displayed in the "Status" selection list. You can create any status in Administration>Master data>Project status. If the status of a project changes, you can set it manually here. Only projects with a postable status are offered in the selection lists for project time and document recording. When creating a new project or copying it, the first project status defined in the master data is preset.

Enter the duration of the project here. Outside the period defined by the start and end dates, the project does not appear in the selection lists for recording, so no times or receipts can be posted to the project, regardless of the project status. The start and end dates are also used as filter criteria in project planning and appear on the evaluations and invoices.

If you selected the project type Customer, the corresponding customer data (customer number, customer name) will be displayed here.

Only with the Invoicing module: If you have activated the option “Invoicing to multiple customers”, the primary customer will be shown here.

You can also enter an optional project or order name in the Customer Order field — this is the name under which the project is known to the customer. It will appear in the Project Revenue and Customer Revenue reports.

If needed, you can select your contact person at the customer from the list of all contacts assigned to that customer. When invoicing the project, this contact person will be preselected as the invoice recipient.

You can enter an order number and contract number. These fields can be displayed as configurable columns in the project table.

Only with the Invoicing module. Define which address should appear on invoices for this project. The default selection “– Customer Billing Address –” means that the address currently set as the billing address for the customer will be used. Only select a different address from the list of customer addresses if invoices for this project should go to a specific address.

Regardless of this setting, you can still adjust the billing address for an individual invoice at the time of invoicing.

This billing type is the standard billing type for all activities: (If individual activities in the project are to be billed differently, you can specify this for the relevant activities.)

If the project is billed according to daily rates and the setting "Bill activities individually" is not activated, you can enter the number of daily rates (that are planned/offered) here. The value is taken into account in the Project Status Plan evaluation.

Setting to bill transactions individually

If all activities in this project have the billing type "as project", then billing for the entire project is not carried out separately for activities.

If you still want an invoice in which the transactions and their amounts are listed individually, then tick this box here.

Display "Transactions are billed individually":

If at least one activity in this project has a billing type other than "as project", then the billing of the entire project must consist of the individual activity billings.

Once you have created an invoice item for one of the transactions in Invoice, you can no longer change the billing type "Bill transactions individually".

If necessary, delete the invoice item to make changes here.

For individual billing of transactions:

The currency in which the project is to be billed is specified here. All costs incurred for the project are listed in this currency under Projects>reports>Project sales or in invoices created with the "Invoice" module (the currency can be changed for each invoice item). Receipts recorded in a different currency are automatically converted to the project currency. The project price tables are in this currency.

Available from ZEP Professional or in ZEP Compact with the Project Planning module.
The planned figures are used in Reports > Projects > Project Status (Plan) and Overall Status (Plan) for the target/actual comparison.
For lump-sum billing of tasks or projects, the planned costs are used as the amount to be invoiced.

If you want to enter a fixed number of planned hours for the entire project, enter them here or activate the checkbox "Fixed Planned Hours".

You can also enter the number of hours per task. If you have already assigned planned hours at the task level, the aggregated (summed) number of hours from the tasks will be displayed here in italics (in the edit window with the note (dyn)).

You can also see whether there are “planning discrepancies”, i.e., when more hours are planned at lower levels (tasks) than specified for the overall project.

All recorded actual hours (billable and non-billable) for the project are displayed here. If billable project hours have been recorded, they are shown under “Bill. Actual Hours”.

This section displays all billable recorded actual hours of the project.

If you want to prevent more hours from being booked than planned, you can set the following options here:

You can also specify a daily overbooking limit, i.e., a number of hours that must not be exceeded per day. (Note: You can only set a daily overbooking limit if an overbooking prevention option has been configured at the project level.)

If a time entry exceeds these planned values, the following message appears:

“Save failed. This time cannot be booked because it would exceed the project/task’s planned hours. The project manager has been notified by email.”

The email is sent to all project managers with budget responsibility.
If there is no project manager with budget responsibility (and email address), it will be sent to all project managers without budget responsibility; if none exist, administrators or department heads are informed.

To help employees know how many hours they can still book to a specific project or task, they can click the “info icon (i)” next to the task in the time tracking view to see the current planned and actual hours.

Only available in ZEP Professional. For fixed-price projects: fixed price for labor costs.

Specify here, for each project, whether and when the project manager(s) with budget responsibility should be notified once a certain percentage of the planned hours has been reached. Depending on the setting, either only billable hours or all hours are considered.

Optionally assign one or more categories to the project (only if categories have been defined under Administration > Projects > Categories).

You can assign keywords to the project to classify and easily find it later.

Select one, several, or all keywords (defined under Administration > Projects > Keywords).
If under Administration > Projects > Settings it is specified that a project manager may add keywords (“Yes”), project managers can also assign their own custom keywords to the project.

Here you can enter any hyperlink, for example, a URL or a link to Salesforce, etc.
Under Projects, this hyperlink is displayed as an icon. The tooltip shows the URL, and by clicking the icon, you will be taken directly to the corresponding address.

Enter a remark for the project and save it.

Under the menu item “Project Plan”, you will find a graphical representation of the project, its tasks (including tickets), and employees.
You can adjust the display of the project plan using filter criteria: Select one, several, or all employees and click “Execute.” The project plan will then show only the tasks to which the selected employee is assigned (either implicitly as a project employee or explicitly as a task employee).

If the Ticket System module is used, you can additionally filter by tickets (and by ticket status) that are assigned to the selected employee as the handler.

By activating the checkbox “Show completed tasks,” tasks whose end date lies before the display period will also be shown.

The project plan visualizes the project structure, including tasks, tickets, and subtasks, and provides an overview of the project’s timeline.

Additionally, it allows for the quick entry of various planning parameters (tasks, employees, planned values, etc.) for the entire project.

You can individually display or hide the shown columns. All project plan settings are saved per user and per project and will automatically be loaded the next time you open the project plan — for example, the position on the timeline or expanded summary tasks.

Below is a detailed overview of additional functions:

In this view, several employee assignments and tickets are displayed.

When a new project is created, no employees are initially assigned to it — except if a “user with additional rights” created the project. This means that, in some cases, no one may yet be able to record time entries for the project.

In the Project Employees submenu, you define which employees are assigned to this project and therefore permitted to book time to it.

You can assign employees to projects either here or under Employees, within each employee’s individual settings. The assignment of project employees can be further refined at the task level.

Since employees can be assigned to a project for a specific time period, you also have the option to view — based on the selected date range — which project employees are allowed to record time entries for the project during that period.

When you define a time period here and click Execute, the table below will list all employees assigned to the project during that time period — and who can therefore record time entries for the project within that range. By default, the current month is selected.
To get a broader overview, you can set the period to start from the project start date and extend it several months into the future.

When this checkbox is activated, employees who are assigned to the project but no longer actively employed in the company (see Employee employment periods) will be hidden from the list.

Here you define which employees belong to this project and are therefore allowed to record time against it. The lower table lists all employees already assigned to the project. If you want to see earlier or future assignments, expand the displayed time period and click Execute again. This table can be exported as a CSV or Excel file.

To add new employees to the project, use the link "allocate other employees" to this project.
If a newly created project should have the same or similar team as an existing one, you can use the "Copy project team member from another project" function.
After copying, you can adjust the list — e.g., add or remove employees, or change project leader roles and price groups.

You can send an email to all project employees (template under Administration > Projects > Mail templates > “To all project employees”), or send an email to a single project employee using the mail icon next to their name (template under Administration > Projects > Mail templates > “To a single project employee”).

In the table column Project Leader, you can see whether an employee has project leader rights.
This setting applies for the entire project duration and can be changed by clicking the icon.
A project may have multiple project leaders.
Their rights depend on the employee’s permission level in the Employee Management module.

Each assigned employee is shown with a blue bar representing their assignment period.
An employee may have one or several assignment periods (bars).
Clicking a bar opens a window where you can edit:

If an employee should no longer be allowed to book time on a project after a certain date, simply shorten the assignment period.

If an employee should have a different price group, internal rate, or availability from a certain date onward, create a new assignment period using the “+” icon.
Enter the new values and the valid period.
If the new period overlaps an existing one, ZEP will display a prompt — confirm with “Yes” to have ZEP automatically shorten and insert the new periods correctly.

Here you will find a list of employees who can be newly assigned to the project as project members:

Only those employees who are currently employed and not yet assigned to the project are listed here.
If needed, you can narrow down the list by specifying an employee category.
Optionally, you can enter an employee name in the search field and click the search icon to filter the list.

Select the desired employees by checking the box in front of their names and click “Save.”

If you cannot find a particular employee in this list, it may be because:

In that case, close the popup window “Assign additional employees to the project.”

To view all employees associated with the project, extend the display period in the main window to cover the entire project duration — from project start into the future — and click “Execute.”

A project employee can have different roles or permissions within a project:

Here, you can select one or more project employees and change their role within the project:

When a new project is created, it does not yet contain any tasks.
Since project time tracking requires specifying a task, no project employee can record time entries for the project until at least one task has been created.

Dividing a project into tasks represents the structuring of a project.
Structuring a project into tasks makes calculations and project control easier. In later evaluations, this allows you to answer questions such as:
Which task consumes the most time or money? Where did we misjudge the time or cost? Which parts need to be broken down further?

You can enter and save each task individually and, as usual, open it for editing or delete it using the corresponding icons.

Another way to edit tasks can be found under the menu item Project Plan.

When you open the page, all tasks are listed in the table.
The task list can be refined using several filter criteria — only the tasks that meet all selected criteria will be displayed.

In the task list, you can move an individual task to a subsequent status.

You can save and manage your filter settings as favorites.

If a newly created project will have the same or a similar task structure as an existing one, you can use the “Copy Tasks from Another Project” function: Select any project as a template and copy its tasks. You can either copy all tasks or select specific ones by checking them individually.Optionally, you can also choose to copy time periods and/or task-employee assignments.

If a task employee is not yet a project employee, you can specify that this person should be automatically added as a project employee.

​

Click the “Define a New Task” button. In the following popup, you can enter all necessary information for your new task:
A task is uniquely identified within the project by its abbreviation, which can be any combination of letters and numbers.
In the Description field, you can enter a more detailed name or title for the task.

Specify whether there is a subordinated task:

By assigning a subordinated task, you create a hierarchy of tasks.

Please note that you can only record time entries and receipts for the lowest-level tasks (tasks that have no subordinated tasks).
A task that has one or more subordinated tasks becomes a so-called summary task, aggregate task, or structuring task. You cannot record time entries or receipts for a structuring task.

Conversely, a task that already has recorded time entries or receipts cannot be turned into a structuring task. Therefore, tasks that already have bookings are not listed among the possible subordinated tasks. Similarly, tasks with specific task–employee assignments and/or specific task activities are not listed among the possible subordinated tasks.

Only available with the Invoicing module:
If the subordinated task is displayed in read-only mode during editing, no other task can be selected as the subordinated task, since invoice items already exist for the task or its subordinated task, and the task has been booked (time entries/receipts).

If you turn a task with a defined duration into a subordinated task, this defined task duration will be suggested for the subordinated task.

In general, the duration of a subordinated task always encompasses the durations of its child tasks — that is, when you create a new child task (or modify an existing one) and extend its duration, the duration of the subordinated task will automatically be adjusted accordingly.

If you do not want the tasks to be sorted by their short name, you can define a custom sorting order here.
The number you specify determines the order in which the tasks will appear in the selection lists.

Each task (except for a summary task) has a status. Only tasks that are assigned a billable status appear in the selection lists for project time and expense entry.

In the “Billing Type” drop-down list, you can specify how the task should be billed.

If you select “Like project”, the task will inherit the standard billing type defined for the project. If you explicitly choose a different billing type for a task, each task will be listed separately in the billing report.

Here you can optionally specify the number of quoted (or planned) daily rates for the task. The number of daily rates is calculated based on the billable actual hours according to the settings under Administration > Prices & Receipts > Daily Rate Portions (or Daily Rate Portions in the Project).

In the Project Status Plan and Overall Status Plan evaluations, the quoted daily rates are compared with the actual values.

If you deactivate individual billing for tasks, you cannot enter any information under "Quoted Daily Rates".
In this case, you must define the corresponding data under Project > Data & Plan.

Indicate whether expense entry should be possible for this task
(only available if the project’s expense settings specify “Expense entry possible: Yes”).

Optionally, you can enter additional information about this task in the Remarks field.

If you want to define a fixed number of planned hours for the task,
enter the value here and/or activate the checkbox “Planned hours (fix).”

If you plan on a lower level (subordinated task, possibly ticket/subtask) and have already assigned planned hours, the aggregated (summed up) number of hours from the lower levels will be displayed here in italics. (In the edit window: with the suffix (dyn)).

If you want to prevent more hours from being booked than planned, you can set the following options here:

As soon as a time entry exceeds these planned values, the following message appears: “Save failed." This time cannot be booked because it would exceed the planned hours for the task. The project manager has been notified by email and the time entry will not be saved.

If you enable the “overbooking lock” later, i.e., after hours have already been recorded, ZEP displays a warning if the actual hours already exceed the planned amount: “The actual hours already exceed the planned hours.”
You can still activate the “overbooking lock.” This will prevent any further time bookings for this task.

All recorded actual hours (billable and non-billable) for the task are displayed here.

If billable project hours have been recorded, they are shown under “Billable Actual Hours.”

The planned labor compensation is calculated as “number of planned hours × applicable hourly rate” (from the price table). You can enter the planned billable labor compensation in the project currency for an expenditure task under “Planned Labor Compensation (fixed).”

You can also enter the planned billable labor compensation for subordinate tasks.
If you have already assigned planned labor compensation to sub-tasks, the aggregated total from these sub-tasks will be displayed here in italics (in the edit window marked with “(dyn)”).

If no amount has been entered for planned labor compensation at the project level, the total of the amounts entered here will be shown in Project > Data & Plan as a dynamic value in italics.

For a pure fixed-price project (project set to “fixed price” and all tasks set to “like project”): Enter here the fixed price for labor to be billed for this task. The total fixed price for labor at the project level will then be the sum of all task-level amounts.

For a mixed project (the project contains tasks that are not set to “like project”):
Billing is handled separately for each task; you must specify the fixed price or planned price for each task individually.

For a fixed-price task, you may also enter a negative amount to document a granted discount or rebate.

Enter the planned billable amount for receipts and, if applicable, mileage allowance in the project currency for a task (under “Planned Receipts, Mileage (fixed)”).
You can also enter this planned amount at the sub-task level.
If you have already assigned amounts for “Planned Receipts, Mileage” to sub-tasks, the aggregated total from these sub-tasks will be displayed here in italics (in the edit window marked with “(dyn)”).

If no amount for Planned Receipts and Mileage has been entered at the project level, the sum of the amounts entered here will be displayed as a dynamic value in italics.

You can also enter the total amount for the entire project in the project data.

For a pure fixed-price project (project set to fixed-price and all tasks set to same as project): Enter the fixed price for receipts and mileage allowance to be billed for this task. The total fixed price for receipts and mileage for the entire project will then be the sum of all tasks.

For a mixed project (the project contains tasks that do not have the billing type same as project): Billing is performed separately per task; you must specify the fixed price or planned amount for each individual task.

For a discount or rebate, you can enter a negative amount in the Planned Labor Compensation field for a task with the billing type fixed-price.

At the task and project activity levels, the billable default can still be overridden. Overall, ZEP uses a hierarchical system for billable defaults: Project → Task → Project Activity.

Changing the default only affects future time bookings. Time entries that have already been recorded are not automatically updated. (If needed, use the action “Rebook project times to…” in the project time evaluation.)

As an administrator or project manager, you can override this billable default, but only

Example: You can manually change a time entry marked “billable” by the employee to “not billable,” even if the setting is “not changeable by employee.”

Note: If the employee later reopens and edits this project time, the “Default Billable Setting for Time Entry” will apply again.

Recommendation: Make such manual changes only when you are sure the employee will no longer modify the entry — for example, when the permitted entry period has expired, or after the time entries have been locked through invoicing or month-end closing.

If you want to define a standard activity, click the “Assign Other Standard Activity” button and select a standard activity from the list

You can define a so-called “standard activity” at both the project level and the task level.
This means that when you select a project or task in the project time tracking module for which a standard activity has been defined, ZEP will automatically prefill the activity selection box with that activity.

Example: For a task called “Travel” that is meant to record all travel-related activities, if the “Travel Activity” is set as the standard activity, this activity will automatically be preselected when the task is chosen — helping prevent incorrect bookings.

If you want to allow all activities for time tracking in this project, simply leave the list of project activities empty. This is the default setting for new projects. So, if all activities should be allowed, no further action is needed.

If not all activities should be allowed for time tracking in this project, you must explicitly create a list of allowed activities by clicking “Add Activity”.
Only the activities included in this list will then be allowed — all others (defined in the Administration section) will no longer be selectable.

If you want to set a specific default billing status (billable/non-billable) for certain activities — different from the general setting at the project or task level — you must also create an explicit list of allowed activities. Afterward, you can change the billing default for each activity in this project by clicking the billing status icon.

When time entries are made for this project, only the project-specific activities will be available for selection.
The complete set of all possible activities continues to be managed under Administration > Projects > Activities.
When copying a project that includes project-specific activities, the associated activity list is copied as well.
In reports, all activities remain available as search or filter criteria.

If a project does not define its own daily rate shares, the definition of daily rate shares set in the Administration applies.
Only if this project should deviate from that definition should you define its own daily rate shares here.

Once you define a specific daily rate share for the project, the daily rate share definition from the master data will no longer apply to this project, and you must define all daily rate shares completely here.

If you want the daily rate share definition from the Administration to apply to the project again, delete all project-specific daily rate shares. Specify for which number of hours you want to calculate which share of the daily rate. This only applies if the project uses the billing type “time and material based on daily rate.”

Please note the following when defining daily rate shares:

You must define them continuously from 0 to 24.00 hours.

If, for example, you mistakenly create the following daily rate shares:
0.25 – 4.00 hours → 0.5 daily rates
5.25 – 12.00 hours → 1.0 daily rates
12.25 – 14.00 hours → 2.0 daily rates

ZEP will not calculate any daily rate for 4.5 hours and for more than 14 hours of work!

Gaps in the definition of project-specific daily rate shares are not filled in by the daily rate share definitions in the Administration. If a project has its own definition of daily rate shares, it must be completely self-contained.

You can assign specific locations to each project in ZEP. To change the project location assignment, click on the link “Select work locations” and make your selection. Click “Apply” to confirm. When recording entries for this project, only the defined project locations will be available for selection.

Please note:
When rebooking project times (for example, under Project > Project Time Evaluation), the rebooking will apply to the selected target location if that location exists in the project’s location list (provided project locations are defined). Otherwise, the location remains unchanged. When rebooking, all entries will receive the new location if it is allowed for the project.

When a project is selected in the rebooking dialog, the location list will display the entry “unchanged” as well as all locations assigned to the project (if available).