Settings
Retrospective Recording for Project Times
Only for today and additional days back If you do not specify additional days back, time recording is only permissible for the respective current day. If you specify that you want to record X days back, these days are added to the setting.
Only for current week and additional days back If you set "... additional days back: 0," recording is allowed for the current week (Monday to Sunday). Optionally, you can additionally specify with this definition:
Allow recording for the previous week on Mondays
Meaning, retrospective recording for the previous week is allowed on Mondays. If you specify that you want to record X days back, these days are added to this setting. (With the setting "5 days," this means that on Mondays, you are allowed to record retrospectively for the last week up to Monday plus 5 days, i.e., up to Wednesday of the week before last. On Tuesdays, you are allowed to record retrospectively up to Wednesdayof the previous week.)
You can define a separate, independent Retrospective Recording period for receipt recording.
Allow Forward Booking for Time Recording and Receipt Recording
Specify how many days into the future Project Time Recording and Receipt Recording should be possible. You can choose whether the forward booking should be restricted to a number of minutes, or whether your employees are allowed to book several days in advance.
Allow Double Bookings
Specify whether times can be booked parallel to each other.
Multi-line remark field in Project Time and Receipt Recording
If you want your employees to add longer remark texts to the booked times, you can set here that the remark field in the Project Time Recording mask is several lines large.
Enforce Remark Text
If you want a remark to be entered for every time entry and every recorded receipt, specify this here.
Pre-fill Remark Text from the last recorded Project Time / Receipt
Here you can determine whether the remark text should be pre-filled with the remark text of the last recorded project time during time recording or not. This setting also relates to the recording of receipts, i.e., whether the remark text of the last recorded receipt should be pre-filled or not.
Allow Time Recording on holidays and days that are not working days (i.e., weekends)
If your employees also work on days that are not set as working days in the Regular Working Time, you should check the box here.
Display days that are not working days
You can decide whether the non-working days (i.e., weekends) should also be displayed in the Project Time Recording table. Even if non-working days are generally switched off: As soon as a booking has been made on a non-working day, that day becomes visible in the table.
Display of gaps in Project Time Recording
Here you can specify whether breaks (times for which no time entries were recorded) should be marked as a gap.
If you activate this option, the gaps in the daily schedule are indicated by a larger spacing in the project time entry table on the "Record Project Time" page.
These gaps are seen as breaks by ZEP. However, if you have simply forgotten to record time here, ZEP now makes it easier for you to fill this gap as follows: When you click on the corresponding gap, the end time of the previous entry is copied as the from-time and the start time of the following entry as the to-time into the upper recording field. Then specify the project/task/activity and remark accordingly, and you can easily fill this gap.
If you use time recording without from/to times (i.e., the ZEP Compact product variant without travel times, and "Recording by duration" checked in the settings), then there are no gaps and this setting is meaningless.
Pre-filling 'from-time' for a new day
Specify whether users should find a predefined time when ZEP starts, or whether the project time recording should be pre-set with the current time (standard) for a new day.
Minute Grid
Here you can choose whether the project time should be recorded in a 1, 2, 5, 6, 10, 15, 20, or 30 minute grid.
If you choose the decimal representation of times, we recommend a 3 or 6 or 15 or 30 minute grid. With 1, 2, 5, 10, and 20 minute grids, you accept rounding differences in the display, as this grid can result in periodic numbers when converting into the respective hourly share, which are displayed rounded in various tables and reports (hours to 4 decimal places, monetary amounts to 2 decimal places). The correct numbers with 10 decimal places are used for calculations.
However, if you recalculate with the displayed rounded numbers, you may arrive at a different final result. Although the final result displayed by ZEP is the correct one, this can lead to confusion regarding project billing. We therefore recommend a 3-minute, 6-minute, 15-minute, or 30-minute grid as the Minute Grid. If the Minute Grid is changed, editing project times that were recorded in a different grid is only possible to a limited extent.
Example: You work with a 1-minute grid and record a time from 11:04 to 11:17. You then switch to a 15-minute grid. You then call up the recorded time booking, e.g., to correct a typo in the remark field. In the change page, the "old" time is "forced" into the "new" grid by rounding, resulting in 11:00 to 11:15. This is saved or attempted to be saved when changing the booking. The change may then no longer be possible due to overlap, because another project time is already booked until 11:04 (according to the old Minute Grid).
Default Meals
In ZEP, meals (breakfast, lunch, or dinner) that an employee received during their trip must be specified for the relevant day. This results in the meal flat rate being deducted from the subsistence costs for that day, e.g., if breakfast was included with the overnight stay or the employee was invited to dinner/lunch by the customer.
Here you can make a Default Setting for the pre-filling of these meals (the employee can override this default setting individually):
No Default Setting
i.e., the employee specifies themselves whether and which meal they had on that day.
Fixed Default Setting optionally for breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner
the specified meals are already pre-filled for a day with a work location that is not the Primary Place of Work; the employee only has to remove the pre-filled setting if they did not have a meal.
This is a first-time and one-time default setting for a new day with a work location that is not the Primary Place of Work; i.e., if the employee has made a different setting for this day, ZEP will no longer automatically change that setting.
This only takes effect if the employee has the setting for subsistence costs.
Working Hours, Target Time, as well as Planned, Overtime, and Deficit Hours in Hours:Minutes Format
Set whether the times recorded in ZEP should be displayed in decimal format or in hours:minutes format.
Setting No
Decimal representation: 15 minutes are displayed as 0.25 hours, 30 minutes as 0.50 hours. If you have set a ZEP-recommended minute grid (3, 6, 15, or 30), only 2 decimal places are needed. However, if you have a 1-minute grid, for example, the hours are displayed rounded to 4 decimal places (5 minutes correspond to 1/12 hour, or 0.0833333333...).
Setting Yes
Representation in Hours:Minutes: 5 minutes are displayed as 00:05 hours, 1 hour and 30 minutes as 1:30.
This explanation also applies to the setting option "Display Project Time Verification, Project Revenue, and Invoice Attachment in Hours:Minutes format.
Expense Report, Project Time Verification, Project Revenue, and Invoice Attachment: Activities and Receipt Types with Designation or Short Form and Legend
Specify here globally how Receipt Types and Activities should be displayed in the mentioned Reports:
Expense Report, Project Time Verification, Project Revenue, and Invoice Attachment: Activities and Receipt Types
with the respective designation in the table (here "Activity" is also specified as the column header) or
Short Form and Legend. This setting uses the short form (in the table) and the legend below the table.
Recording a billable time that falls into a surcharge period according to the price list: Employee is asked and can specify whether this surcharge should actually be applied.
It can happen that employees voluntarily work in the evening, at night, or on weekends for a project, even though it would not be necessary, and consequently, no Price Factors should be calculated. Here you set how to proceed in this case:
Yes: If the price list used has Price Factors for specific times, the employee will be asked during their time booking whether the Price Factors should apply to this project time. (Please note, in case of overlaps with already recorded times, the question regarding the Price Factors comes first, followed by the question of whether the time should be overwritten.) The selection of whether the time is subject to a surcharge can also be changed retrospectively: Call up the relevant time for modification and save; the question will then be displayed again and can be changed as desired. A time entry with the specification that the Price Factor should not be applied is marked with a blue money symbol.
No: Any existing Price Factors are calculated by default without inquiry.
Project Time Recording: Display Tasks including superior Tasks
If you want to display not only the Task but the Task hierarchy—i.e., all possibly superior Tasks—under My ZEP > Record Project Times, you can set this here.
Work Break regulation
If you want to observe or even enforce the legal requirements for Break Regulation in your company, you can store this here in ZEP. Additionally, you can also define Core Working Hours within a Break Regulation. If you do not want a Break Regulation in ZEP (i.e., employees are responsible for correctly recording their breaks themselves), disregard this point.
What are breaks?
In ZEP, unbooked periods between two time entries are considered breaks. Additionally, Travel Times that are notbooked to a vehicle (e.g., travel by plane or train or as a passenger), so-called passive travel times, count as Break Times in the sense of the Break Regulation, meaning such passive travel times are not counted as Working Time (in certain Reports)! These travel times are deducted from the Working Time in the corresponding Reports and listed as a break in the sense of the Break Regulation.
These travel times are not deducted from your working hours (they count as working time in terms of overtime relevance).
Travel Times in a vehicle (e.g., car), so-called active travel times, are not considered breaks in the sense of the Break Regulation, as ZEP assumes that you were driving yourself and thus cannot take a break.
In Austria, the regulation applies: "For active travel time, the extension of the daily maximum working time is a maximum of 12 hours if the work is performed by ordered driving of a vehicle, provided this does not constitute the employee's main activity." This means here an employee is allowed to work additional hours.
Create Break Regulation
Here you create a Break Regulation for your company (or multiple ones). The Standard Break Regulation is already created, in which the minimum breaks according to § 4 ArbZG (German Working Hours Act) are entered.
If you want to create a new Break Regulation, click Create New Break Regulation, enter a name, and save.
Specify the date from which the Break Regulation is valid.
You can choose whether you want to have a Minimum Rest Time. This refers to the time span between two working days.
If you specify no Minimum Rest Time, you only need to specify the maximum working time per day in hours in the sense of the Break Regulation; if applicable, also enter the additional hours for active travel times.
If you specify a Minimum Rest Time, enter it in hours in the sense of the Break Regulation. This is the time span that must be maintained at least between two working days or shifts. Also specify the maximum working time per day in hours in the sense of the Break Regulation. Enter the additional hours for active travel times, if applicable.
You can enforce compliance with the defined break rule:
If you do not activate the checkbox Enforce Compliance, employees will only be warned during the recording of their project times that they are violating the Break Regulation regarding Minimum Rest Time / Maximum Working Time / Minimum Break Length if they do not adhere to the defined requirements. But a correction is not enforced.
Exception: If a "Fixed Break" is defined, compliance with it is always enforced (the break is automatically cut out when recording project time).
If you activate the checkbox Enforce Compliance, employees are blocked from Time Recording for the following days when they fail to comply with the defined rules, until the violation is corrected. Additionally, other actions (e.g., time Release, invoicing) are also blocked.
You can switch the warning for violation of the Break Regulation on or off at any time via the checkbox If the Break Regulation (Maximum Working Time, Minimum Breaks, Core Working Hours) is not complied with, the user receives a warning already during recording (My ZEP > Project Times, App, Terminal): Yes / No.
The Month-end Report, the Working Time Overview, the Break Overview, and the Month-end Closing continue to show non-compliance.
If you use the Absences & Overtime module, you can optionally specify whether exceeded Maximum Working Time and non-complied Minimum Breaks should be deducted from the employee's Overtime Account. (Non-complied Minimum Rest Times are not deducted.)
Calculation Procedure for Missing Breaks
Specify how the deduction for missing breaks should be calculated.
Gross: The total time is considered, and the corresponding minimum break is deducted from it.
Net: All minimum breaks are considered sequentially: The time up to the first intended minimum break is considered, and the minimum break applicable to that time is deducted. The resulting net time is considered, and, if applicable, another minimum break is deducted from it.
Employee-Friendly: Like the Net variant, but with the following difference: In some cases, it is sufficient to deduct less than the minimum break, so that the Working Time falls under the scope of the relevant minimum break rule and the break rule is thus already fulfilled.
These three variants calculate a number based on the sum of the working hours and the sum of the breaks taken. This number is independent of the times of the working and break periods.
Employee-Friendly, but also apply to contiguous segments of the day: Relevant when breaks are too early or too late in the day, resulting in Working Time blocks with a duration greater than 6 hours. The Break Regulation is then applied to these blocks again, and, if applicable, further breaks are cut into them.
Specify the minimum length of a break in the sense of the Break Regulation.
Work interruptions of less than 15 minutes do not count as statutory rest breaks according to §4ArbZG. They therefore count as Working Time. (Exception: companies with corresponding collective agreements or works agreements.) - However, ZEP does not prohibit you from entering minimum lengths shorter than 15 minutes here.
In which reports is the Break Regulation considered/displayed?
Every employee sees, under Reports > My Reports > Break Overview, a table for the selected report period showing the observed Rest Periods, start and end of Working Time, the required Minimum Break, and the observed break for each day. Additionally, for days with non-compliance with the Break Regulation, information about insufficient Rest Period, insufficient break, or excessive Working Time is displayed.
With Absences & Overtime module: Under Reports > My Reports > Month-end Report, all data regarding observed Rest Periods, start and end of Working Time, required Minimum Break, and observed break are displayed for the selected report period in addition to the existing information. Furthermore, for days with non-compliance with the Break Regulation, information about insufficient Rest Period, insufficient break, or excessive Working Time is displayed.
Administrators (and Department Managers, if applicable) can also run these reports for all employees (all employees in the department).
If you use the Absences & Overtime module, you can save the overtime and vacation balances at the end of the month in ZEP with a Month-end Closing. Once a month has been closed, the Break Regulation can no longer be changed for that period, and you must create a new Break Regulation with a suitable start date.
Calculation Procedure - Examples
Here you will find explanations, using examples, of the variants for the Calculation Procedure for missing Minimum Breaks and thus—if set—for the deduction of missing breaks:
Assume the Minimum Breaks are set as follows:
From 6:01 to 9:00 hours: Minimum Break 0:30
From 9:01 to 24:00 hours: Minimum Break 0:45
And assume an employee has the following bookings:
Day A: 7:03 to 16:45 (without break) = Working Time 9:42
Day B: 7:15 to 16:21 (without break) = Working Time 9:06
Variant Gross:
Day A: Working Time is more than 9 hours => Minimum Break according to table 00:45
Day B: Working Time is more than 9 hours => Minimum Break according to table 00:45
The total time is considered, and the corresponding Minimum Break is deducted from it.
Variant Net:
Day A: Working Time is already more than 6:01 hours => Minimum Break according to table 00:30.
Remaining Working Time 9:12. This is more than 9:01 hours.
Minimum Break total 00:45 (so in this case, no difference to gross).
Day B: Working Time is already more than 6:01 hours => Minimum Break according to table 00:30.
Remaining Working Time 8:36. This fulfills all rules for Minimum Break. Total Minimum Break 0:30.
All Minimum Breaks are considered sequentially: The time up to the first intended Minimum Break is considered, and the applicable Minimum Break is deducted. The resulting net time is considered, and, if applicable, a further Minimum Break is deducted from it.
Variant Employee-Friendly:
Day A: Working Time is already more than 6:01 hours => Minimum Break according to table 00:30.
Remaining Working Time 9:12. This is more than 9:01 hours.
However: With a further break of only 12 minutes, the remaining Working Time is 9:00 hours and thus below the limit of 9:01, therefore the total Minimum Break is only 00:42 hours.
Day B: Like the Net variant, but with the following difference: In some cases, it is sufficient to deduct less than the Minimum Break, so that the Working Time falls under the scope of the relevant minimum break rule and the break rule is thus already fulfilled.
These three variants calculate a number based on the sum of the working hours and the sum of the breaks taken. This number is independent of the times of the working and break periods.
Employee-Friendly, but also apply to contiguous segments of the day
Relevant when breaks are too early or too late in the day, leaving Working Time blocks with a duration greater than 6 hours. The Break Regulation is then applied to these blocks again, and, if applicable, further breaks are cut into them.
Minimum Breaks
Within the framework of a Break Regulation, you specify the applicable Minimum Breaks for working hours here:
According to § 4 ArbZG (German Working Hours Act), the minimum duration of breaks is staggered according to the duration of the employees' daily working hours. The minimum duration of breaks for working hours of more than 6 up to 9 hours is at least 30 minutes, and for working hours of more than 9 hours, it is 45 minutes. If you want to map these legal requirements in your ZEP in this way, please specify it as follows:
Create New Minimum Break:
from Hours 6:01 and to Hours 9:00:
Specify the corresponding Minimum Break in hours in the sense of the Break Regulation: 0:30 and press save.
from Hours 9:01 and to Hours 24:00:
Specify the corresponding Minimum Break in hours in the sense of the Break Regulation: 0:45 and press save.
Fixed Break
You can create a Fixed Break:
Click on Create New Fixed Break, specify from when to when this break should apply, and Save.
Fixed Breaks are always cut out for all employees to whom the Break Regulation is assigned, except during Travel Activity.
Even Administrators cannot subsequently record times within the time window of the Fixed Break. The specification of a Fixed Break is accordingly only recommended if employees cannot work during that time. For example, during shop closing hours over lunch.
Core Working Hours
Within the Break Regulation, you can define Core Working Hours in ZEP. Core Working Hours are a time span during which employees should record time. An employee can be assigned the Core Working Hours defined there (or multiple Core Working Hours) via the assignment of a Break Regulation.
Compliance with the Core Working Hours is not enforced. In the Project Times table, ZEP displays a blue notification if the Core Working Hours were not complied with on a particular day. In the Month-end Report, a column "insufficient Core Working Hours" is displayed (only with the Absences & Overtime module).
How to create Core Working Hours:
Click Create New Core Working Hours, specify from when to when these Core Working Hours should apply and Save. Specify the maximum permissible break in hours.
Example:
Core Working Hours from 9:00 to 16:00 maximum permissible break of 1 hour. This means the employee must have worked at least 5 hours between 9:00 and 16:00. Please note: the "break" can also be at the beginning or at the end of the Core Working Hours.
If you have employees who work part-time, you should assign them their own Break Regulation with a corresponding core time.
Mail Templates
ZEP offers you the possibility to send emails at various points. For these emails, there are standardized texts included in the emails.
Here you can customize the standardized text for the Project Times Mail Template. You have the option to send specific information regarding employees through general Placeholders. The Placeholders will be displayed to you when you click into the content text field.
Additionally, you can optionally add files (max. 5 x 20MB / max. 50MB total).
You can send all Mail Templates as a test email (Preview) to your own email address.
Click Test Send (to own email address) and make the desired language selection (currently German, English, French, Spanish, and Polish); you will then receive the email in the corresponding language sent to your address.