Under Project > [Project Name] > Account Settings, you can define how your project should be billed.

If the project, including all its tasks, is billed on a fixed-price (lump-sum) basis, the settings made here under the sections General and For Hourly Rate Tasks apply to the Project Time Report evaluation for the project.

Below, we will go through the various format settings step by step.

Here you control the appearance and content of the project time report, project revenue (or customer revenue) for the selected project.

If you use the Invoicing module, the format of the invoice attachment is also defined here.

Under Detailed report you can specify separate settings for the project revenue, the project time report, and — if applicable — the invoice attachment.

Under "For working time by hour" you can configure additional format settings for tasks billed on an hourly-rate basis.

Under "For working time by daily rate portion" you can configure additional format settings for tasks billed on a daily-rate basis.

You can specify whether remarks and/or tasks should be shown for subsistence costs, mileage allowance, and receipts.

With the button "change format" you can change the format settings of the project.

Depending on the ZEP version in use, the following ZEP reports are displayed in the project’s language:

The language setting also determines the locale-specific formatting of dates, times, and decimal numbers.

If you set the project language to "-Standard-", your ZEP default language (defined under Administration > My Company > General) will apply.

Here you can configure how employees, working times, travel expenses, and receipts are displayed for each report.

The settings for the project time report also apply to projects or tasks that are billed on a fixed-price basis.

In the dropdown menu for employees, working times, travel expenses, and receipts, you have several options. Here’s a brief explanation:

Here you specify the billing format for tasks billed on an hourly-rate basis.

You can select the following options for sub-totals:

Here you define the billing format for tasks billed on a daily-rate basis:

If both daily rates and hourly rates including price factors are stored in the project’s price list, ZEP calculates any surcharges that would apply if billing were done by hourly rate. These surcharges are then added to the standard daily-rate billing.

That means: The surcharges are defined as price factors in the price table. These price factors automatically affect projects billed by hourly rate.

If neither the customer price tables nor the base price tables should apply, you can create a project-specific price table.
If new prices are negotiated with the customer during the course of the project, you can create a new price table with the corresponding valid-from date and comment using "Create new project price table".

In addition to daily and hourly rates, you can also define specific hourly rates for activities per price group, as well as specify price factors for special times.

If a project does not have its own price table, the customer price table applies for billing and reporting related to the project. If there is also no customer price table, then the company’s base price table applies.

This means: If you create a project price table, the system expects valid project price table(s) for the entire project duration.
A mixture of price tables from different sources — for example, “the project uses the base price table starting in January, and its own project price table starting in June (valid-from column)” — is not supported.

Each price table consists of four parts:

Price factors are time-dependent multipliers that can be linked to a price table.
For example, if you want to define a special hourly rate for night or weekend work, open the relevant price table (base, project, and/or customer price table), click “Add price factors”, and enter the corresponding factors.

You can also add specific price factors for additional activities.

If you want to use all price groups defined in the master data for a project, you don’t need to do anything further. (Administration > Prices & receipts > price groups)

ZEP displays in the blue information box which price groups (standard or customer price groups) are available in the price tables and for employee assignment.

You can limit the list of project price groups as follows:

Specify whether receipts can be recorded for this project.
Additionally, you can set whether receipts may also be recorded directly to the project (i.e., without being assigned to a task).

he setting “Receipt recording possible: Yes” is selected, you can define additional specifications for the invoicing of receipts.

Employees can record receipts for any project via the Receipts menu (provided that “Receipt entry allowed” is enabled in the project’s receipt settings).
The internal amount of a receipt is added to the internal costs of the project.
The external (billable) amount is charged to the customer on the project invoice.

If you already know during project planning that, for example, receipts for this project will never be charged to the customer, you can specify that here — this simplifies the process for employees entering receipts later.

The following general settings for receipts are available:

Additionally, you can define “specifically handled receipt types”, meaning that you can configure the billing or invoicing rules individually for each receipt type.
You can also use bulk operations here to make changes quickly.

For each project, you can define various settings for handling trips, travel expenses, and subsistence allowances.

They determine the appearance and content of the billing statement, which you can access under Reports > Project Billing or Project Reports > Customer Billing.
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Specify whether the mileage allowance booked to the project should be charged to the customer. If yes, the mileage allowances will be included in the project revenue and also counted as external costs in the reports.

You can choose whether all kilometers booked to the project should be billed, or only those associated with billable working hours.

If mileage is to be billed for the project and you have agreed on a special mileage rate with the customer, enter this rate as an amount per kilometer driven in the project currency.

If the project is set to bill mileage but no special mileage rate is specified, the internal mileage and passenger allowance rates will be applied (see Master Data > Vehicles).

By entering an amount here, you specify that the project billing should include arrival flat rates. Once you have entered and saved an amount, you can additionally define locations with different arrival flat rate amounts. The project currency applies.

An arrival flat rate is only generated when project times are recorded with a specified work location (not “standard” and not “home office”) and marked as project-relevant.
You can specify whether this should apply only to billable working hours or to all working hours.

If you travel for multiple projects belonging to the same customer on a single day, there are several ways the travel flat rates can be distributed among the involved projects. You can configure this under Customer > Account Settings > Travel Settings.

For this project, choose one of the following options:

A trip can also span multiple days. The start and end of a trip should be indicated by recording a departure and a return trip.

You have the option to specify a location with a different amount for the travel flat rate. Click “Add location with different amount for travel flat rate”, select a location (the list of locations comes from Administration > Travel > Work Locations or from Project locations), and enter the corresponding amount.

A travel flat rate per employee and trip is calculated across non-booked intermediate days (e.g. Saturday and Sunday) under the following conditions:

If you want the trip not to be interrupted despite a four-day gap, record a continuation trip (this can also have a duration of 0) on an otherwise unbooked day, so that there are again no more than three unbooked days in between.

Billing follows the same rules as for internal subsistence costs. For billing to take place, the project time entry must include a work location (not “Standard”) and be marked as project-relevant.

If the project should bill daily allowances and deductions but no specific daily rates or deductions are defined, the internal daily allowances and deductions of the respective location (see Master Data > Locations) will be applied.

All information regarding subsistence costs only applies to projects with the billing type “time and material”, as well as to tasks with the billing type “like project” within such projects.

If, on a given day, you record time on multiple projects with project-relevant off-site work, the resulting subsistence costs will be distributed among the involved projects according to the settings under Administration > Travel > Subsistence Costs (project share).

Subsistence costs are shown in the employee’s expense report and are included as internal project costs in the profit analysis.

You can also charge subsistence costs to a project, which can be configured individually for each project.
The calculated amount will then appear in both the project invoice and the profit analysis.

Subsistence costs occur when an employee records project time at a work location other than their main workplace (“first place of work”).
ZEP determines the total time spent away from home, including breaks.

It works best when the employee starts each trip with a “departure” entry and ends it with a “return” entry. (If company policy states that travel time is not considered working time, the departure and return can be recorded with duration “0”, simply marking the start and end of the trip.)

In Master Data > Locations, country-specific parameters for each location are defined. For each day of absence, ZEP calculates the subsistence costs based on the duration of the absence and the parameters of the work location.

Subsistence costs are calculated for non-booked intermediate days (e.g., Saturday and Sunday) if the following conditions are met:

This allows ZEP to account for tax-free subsistence allowances when an employee stays at an external work location over the weekend, even if no work is performed.
If both the Friday and Monday work are booked to a project that bills subsistence costs to the client, these weekend subsistence costs will also be included in the project invoice.

To prevent weekend subsistence costs, record a return trip on Friday (e.g., if an employee stays privately at the external location).
In this case, no subsistence costs will be calculated for the weekend.
On Monday, a new departure entry (duration “0”) should be recorded to start the next trip.

If a trip includes several locations, the last visited location of a calendar day determines the subsistence cost rate.
Exception: if both domestic and foreign locations were visited on the same day, the last foreign location is used. ZEP recognizes domestic locations if the word “Inland” is included in the location name.

If two trips occur on the same day, ZEP sums the total absence time for that calendar day.
Again, the last visited location (or last foreign location) determines the rate.

Trips spanning midnight must be recorded in two parts (one per calendar day):

Each trip should have exactly one departure and one return, with all intermediate movements recorded as “transit” entries.

The midnight rule allows absence periods from two calendar days to be combined for subsistence calculation — but only if no overnight stay occurred.
The rule applies when: