This article builds on the First Steps for Employees article. The fundamentals of daily ZEP usage described there will not be repeated here.
This article focuses on system setup, basic configuration, and the most important administrative tasks for administrators and users with additional permissions. Depending on the modules and roles in use, controllers, project managers, department heads, or users with extended rights may also take on individual administrative tasks.
Note: During the trial phase, email dispatch is initially deactivated and must be activated by ZEP. Until then, ZEP does not send any automatic system emails (for example access data, password resets, absence request notifications). For details, see Account – Administration.
Setup assistant on first login
When you open a new ZEP trial for the first time, a setup assistant guides you through the basic configuration. It appears automatically before the first login and creates your administrator account in the process. The assistant asks for three things:
Access data — language, first name, last name, username, email address and password for the first administrator account.
Product line and modules — you choose your product line and enable the add-ons you want.
Country — country and federal state of your company.
Once completed, ZEP starts normally. The assistant does not appear again. You can change everything entered there at any time: your company data under Administration > My Company, product line and modules during the trial in the main menu under My Trial, and after you sign your contract under Administration > Account > Subscription.
Note: The setup assistant runs once per instance. If you need it again, please contact ZEP support.
Defining Basic Settings Before First Use
As an administrator, you configure the following basic settings once before your team starts working with ZEP.
Under Administration, you will find the central configuration areas for your company. Which areas appear depends on your product line. Decide there deliberately before go-live how ZEP should be used in your organization. The following areas are particularly important:
My Company: Define the default language, login options such as Single Sign-On, password policies, and basic email settings (mail server and signature), as well as your individual letterhead for quotes, invoices, and other client documents.
Projects: Define the project number range and default values for new projects (activities, project status, task status).
Customers: Form the foundation for projects and billing. Define default values for new clients (e.g. VAT, payment terms) and the structure of your sequential client numbers.
Employees: Define the default values pre-filled for new employees, including regular working hours, vacation entitlement, work break regulations, and other presets.
Prices & Receipts: If you work with billable services, define base price tables and associated price groups. If travel and external costs are recorded, receipt types should also be configured. Revenue & Costs are included in ZEP Control, ZEP Operations, and ZEP Business.
Note: The pricing logic should be clearly defined before go-live (e.g. "price table on the client" vs. "price table on the project"). Subsequent changes are possible but often lead to inconsistencies in reports and billing
Project Times & Receipts: Define the central rules for daily time entry, including the retroactive entry period, permitted advance bookings, double bookings (parallel travel and working times), the requirement for notes, and whether entries are allowed on public holidays or days without a target working time.
Note: The Minutes grid is particularly important, we recommend 3, 6, 12, 15, or 30 minutes, as grids of 1, 2, 5, 10, or 20 minutes can cause rounding differences in reports. Note that if the Minutes grid is changed later, editing already recorded project times will only be possible to a limited extent. This decision should therefore be made before go-live wherever possible.
Break Rules and Working Time Regulations: In the Project Times & Receipts settings, you can also configure work break regulations, defining minimum rest periods, maximum working hours, minimum breaks, automatic break deductions, core hours, and warnings for rule violations.
Note: The "Standard" work break regulation based on minimum breaks per § 4 ArbZG is already set up but can be adjusted or supplemented with additional rules. Important: once a month has been closed, the work break regulation for that period can no longer be changed. In this case, you will need to create a new work break regulation with a corresponding start date. More on this in the article Times and receipts – Administration.
Travel: If you want to use ZEP for travel expense billing, first define your work location. Based on that, you configure the corresponding meal allowances that should be available for booking, and mileage allowances. Travel Expense Management is included in ZEP Operations and ZEP Business.
Overtime & Absences: If you use the Absences & Overtime area, set the introduction date before go-live. From this month onwards, employees must record their times in full. Additionally, absence reasons, public holiday calendars, and, if used, surcharges and special time types should be properly prepared.
Creating Employees
You create new employees under Employees with the Create new employee button. A wizard guides you through the setup step by step. The default settings for new employees from the section above are already filled in:
Master data: username, first and last name, user role and login details, optionally department, address and contact details. If your employees log in through an external login provider, you also enter their ID with that provider here. If you work with prices, assign a default price group here to define the standard hourly or daily rate for the employee. You can customize it at any time at the customer and project level.
Working time model: employment period, regular working hours, holiday calendar and work break regulation, and with the Absences & Overtime area also the vacation entitlement.
Project allocation: you assign the employee directly to the projects they should book time on.
Settings: language, rules for time entry and, depending on your permissions, the internal hourly rate for cost and margin calculation.
Tip: Under Password Assignment, you choose whether ZEP sends the employee a link to set their password by email. If the employee does not have a business email address, set an initial password with "Enter password" and share it together with the username. More on this in the article Creating, editing and deleting employees.
After you save, ZEP opens the Employee File of the new employee. There you add or review the following as needed:
Working time model: you maintain employment periods and regular working hours later under Employee File > Working time model. For mid-year starters with non-rounded vacation entitlements, it is recommended to work with two employment periods.
Internal Hourly Rates: you make later changes to the internal hourly rate under Employee File > Internal Hourly Rates.
Overtime & Vacation Balance: if the employee brings forward existing vacation days and overtime, enter them under Employee Management > Balancing overtime and holidays and offset them there in future.
In ZEP Business, the Employee File also includes HR Management with contract details, compensation, tax & insurance, skills, employee reviews and notes.
Data migration during onboarding: ZEP migrates existing data from a previous system as part of onboarding — in the product lines with project references typically employees, project times, absences, and customer projects. You can additionally import the recorded project times yourself via Excel (see Personal reports). For the remaining migration, contact ZEP support at [email protected]. ZEP provides Excel templates for this, which you fill with your data and send back. How to fill in the templates is described in Filling in the Import Templates.
Creating Customers
Customers are another central data object in ZEP and should be set up completely from the start. In customer management, you maintain master data, contacts, and other customer-specific information.
If you work with billing-relevant functions, it is also worth reviewing the billing settings. Here you can store customer price tables and travel settings that have been individually agreed upon with the customer. These automatically apply to new projects for that customer, as long as no separate price tables are created at the project level.
Tip: You can find detailed information in the article Creating, editing and deleting customers.
Creating Suppliers
If you want to record supplier receipts and external costs in ZEP, you should also maintain the Suppliers section from the start. In the settings, you can define a number range for supplier numbers and a default VAT value. Additionally, industries, categories, and custom attributes can be configured. Supplier management is included in ZEP Operations and ZEP Business.
Tip: You can find detailed information in the article Suppliers.
Creating Projects and Tasks
Before employees can log time, you must first create projects and assign employees to them as project members.
After creating a project, define the associated tasks (or sub-projects or project phases) against which project times and receipts will later be booked.
Note: if no tasks have been created, the project cannot be selected for time tracking. Likewise, only projects with a bookable status will appear in the selection lists for project time and receipt entry. More on this in the article Creating, editing and deleting projects.
It is also advisable to assign a clear and meaningful project abbreviation right away, so that projects can be quickly identified in selection lists and reports.
If no client record is assigned to a project, it is treated as an internal project, which is non-billable.
You can copy projects to reuse the project structure, project settings, and other recurring master data one to one, so that in future you only need to duplicate them.
After creating the project, you can individually adjust settings such as billing and project configuration. Feel free to share your specific use case with us at [email protected] to receive tailored advice.
Defining Time Entry Methods for Your Company
For a smooth start, you should decide early on how time will be recorded in your company. The following options are available:
The standard method is via the browser using the time entry screen or the stamp icon (top right).
Additionally, the ZEP browser extension can be used to clock in and out without opening ZEP in the browser.
For mobile use, the ZEP app is available, allowing project times, receipts, and absences to be recorded or requested.
If you also want to use stationary time recording, partner terminals (Datafox and EasySecure) are available, enabling time booking against projects.
If the checkbox Record attendances in addition to project times is selected under Employees – Administration, employees also clock in and out at the ZEP Terminal. The ZEP Terminal can be added in all product lines.
For a successful rollout, the key factor is not the range of technical options but rather a clear decision: which employee groups will record time in the browser, which will use the mobile app, and where do terminal solutions make sense?
Tip: You can find detailed information in the article Times and receipts – Administration.
Knowing the Key Administrative Workflows for Day-to-Day Use
For administrators, and, where the Departments area is active, also for designated department heads, it is important to know where typical corrections and additions are made in day-to-day operations. You open the relevant employee under Employees. There, the Employee Management menu contains the entries Project Times, Receipts, and Calendar. Here you can edit other employees' project times, review receipts, and manage absences.
You make individual rebookings directly for the respective employee under Employee Management > Project Times. For larger rebookings between projects, tasks, or employees, we recommend the Project Times Report, where you select multiple entries and rebook them at once via "Select action".
This gives users with additional permissions a dedicated place for the most important day-to-day administrative tasks.
Using Automations Effectively
Under Administration › System › Tasks, you can automate recurring tasks. Particularly useful from the start are tasks such as reminders for missing time entries, reminders to clock in, or the automatic logout of employees at a fixed time or after a certain attendance duration. Additionally, you can set up notifications for employment periods, absence requests, shortfalls in target hours, or monthly closing locks. This helps to stabilize day-to-day operations early on and prevent incorrect bookings.
Tip: You can find detailed information in the article Administration.
Introducing Additional Modules
The product lines with project references offer additional and in some cases very extensive features, for example Resource Planning, and Proposals and Invoicing from ZEP Operations onwards. Resource Planning is included in ZEP Business. In ZEP Track, ZEP Control, and ZEP Operations it can be added. It is booked via the ZEP Self-Service Tool under Administration > Account.
These modules are functionally very powerful and often integrate deeply into existing business processes. If you plan to actively use them, we recommend a personal consultation with our ZEP expert team. Simply get in touch at [email protected] so that the setup can be tailored precisely to your workflows.
Tip: You can find detailed information in the article Resource Planning, Proposals, Invoicing.