The module settings can be found under Administration > Overtime & Absences > Settings. The page is divided into the sections General, Absences, Absence Requests, Contractually Compensated Overtime, Reports, and Residual Holiday & Surcharges. Click the pencil icon next to a heading or on Change Settings to make adjustments.
General
Introduction of the Module
Specify from which month the module was introduced in ZEP. From this month onwards, employees must record all working hours in full – missing entries will be calculated as absences.
Note: If you initially used ZEP only for testing, enter the month from which you start productively. Also enter the previous year's overtime and the holiday entitlement for the current fiscal year for each employee in the employee administration. From the introduction date onwards, you should regularly perform the Month-End Closing.
Caution: If you have previously managed absences via an “Absences project”, no hours may be booked to this project from the introduction date onwards.
End of Fiscal Year
Specify with which month your fiscal year ends. This date affects the timing of the holiday entitlement when the holiday year is set to “Annual holiday entitlement always at the start of a fiscal year”.
Holiday Year
Choose how the holiday year is defined for your employees:
Annual holiday entitlement always at the start of a fiscal year: The holiday year corresponds to the fiscal year.
For each employee the annual holiday entitlement starts on a different date: The holiday year corresponds to the individual employee year (generally the entry date; common in Austria).
Absences
Absence Recording & Overtime Notification
Specify who may record absences and which rules apply:
Users may enter their own absences: Specify from which role employees may enter their own absences.
Allow absence recording in the past: Control whether retroactive entries are possible.
Time recording on a full absence day possible: Define whether hours may be booked on a day marked as a full absence day.
Minute grid for absences: Specify the grid in which absences can be recorded (e.g. 1, 5, or 15 minutes).
Email for too many overtime hours per day: Enter an hour limit above which an email is automatically sent to the department head or administrator. The recipient is initially the direct department head; if none exists or the email address is missing, the superior department or the administrator is notified.
Tip: Employees with a regular working time of 0 on all weekdays (e.g. freelancers) do not receive an overtime notification. You can customise the text of the email under Administration > Overtime & Absences > Mail Templates (template: “Notification for too many overtime hours per day”).
Absence Requests
Recipients and Approval
Specify who should receive absence requests by email. In most cases this is the administrator. Additional recipients (e.g. HR managers) can be entered separated by spaces, commas, or semicolons.
With the Locations & Departments module, department heads and department heads of superior departments are also available as recipients. This setting applies globally to all departments, unless different settings are stored at department level.
Request Recipients & Default Remark
You can specify whether employees may view and edit the recipient list when submitting a request. In addition, a default text for the remark field can be pre-filled, which each employee can adjust individually in the request.
Note: If it is set that a department head may not approve their own absences, they will not receive a notification about their own request. In this case the request is forwarded to superior department heads, administrators, or additional recipients.
Approving and Changing Absences
Specify whether only administrators may subsequently change approved absences and whether a department head may approve their own absences (only with the Locations & Departments module).
Contractually Compensated Overtime
If employees in your company have contracts that compensate a certain number of overtime hours on a flat-rate basis, activate the setting Deduct inclusive overtime from the monthly hour balance.
The default for new employees (value and calculation method in hours or percent) is stored under Administration > Employees > Settings. In the Regular Working Hours menu item of an individual employee you can adjust the value individually.
Per month a maximum of as many overtime hours as are set in the respective employee record are counted as compensated – and never more than were actually worked. With minus hours (e.g. due to time off in lieu) no automatic supplement is applied.
Example: An employee has agreed 10 inclusive overtime hours per month.
They work 9 overtime hours in September → all 9 are entered as compensated.
They work 13 overtime hours → 10 are deducted, 3 remain as overtime.
In October the target working time is 107 hours, they book 95 hours (rest as time off in lieu). Results in −12 hours → no automatic compensation.
Reports
Current Month up to and Including Current Day
Activate this option so that in the reports Month-End Report, Time Report Summary, Working Times Overview, and (with the Locations & Departments module) Department > Times the current day is automatically pre-filled as the end of the period. The period can be adjusted manually at any time.
Notice for Overdue Month-End Closing
Set after how many months without a Month-End Closing a notice appears in the reports. The value must be between 1 and 12.
Show Overtime Balance under My ZEP
Specify whether employees may view their current overtime balance in the absence calendar, in the Month-End Report, and in the Time Report Summary.
Remarks on Balanced Holiday and Absences
If you set “Yes” here, employees can see in their Month-End Report the remark that was entered during the manual balancing of overtime or holiday days under Employee > Compensation Overtime, Holiday.
Show Payable Hours
With this option the following reports are supplemented with a column “Payable Hours”: Month-End Report (replaces “Effective Hours”), Annual Overview (per month), and Working Times Overview (balance). Payable hours include working hours, paid absence, public holiday hours, and surcharges, minus breaks not observed.
Visibility of the Absences Overview
If you activate this option, only employees with the “User with additional rights” permission level or higher can view the absences overview of all employees in the reports.
Residual Holiday & Surcharges
Expiry of Residual Holiday
Optionally specify whether and when unused residual holiday from the elapsed holiday year automatically expires at Month-End Closing. The following options are available:
Always in the following year in month [month]: ZEP automatically deletes all old holiday days from the previous year when closing the specified month. The deleted residual holiday is displayed in the Compensation menu item of the employee.
Always [number] months after the end of the holiday year: Particularly suitable when each employee has their own holiday year starting from the entry date. Also works with holiday year = calendar year if the expiry should occur later than in the following year.
Note: An expiry always only occurs at the Month-End Closing of the configured month. Months that have already been closed are not affected by subsequent setting changes. The deletion of residual holiday requires that a previous year exists – if the module is introduced on 1 January 2023, the automatic deduction therefore only takes effect from 2024 onwards.
Time Surcharges
With the setting Show surcharges for public holidays and special times as time surcharges and add to the overtime account you control how surcharges are processed.
Without the checkbox ticked, surcharges from Administration > Overtime & Absences > Holidays are only shown in the Month-End Report but not converted into time surcharges.
With the checkbox ticked, the following applies:
All public holiday surcharges are converted into time surcharges.
Under Administration > Overtime & Absences > Special Times a time surcharge in percent can be assigned per entry.
If you already have a surcharge for a public holiday (e.g. 50 %) and additionally define a special time for public holidays (e.g. 100 %), both surcharges are added together (= 150 %).
In the Month-End Report one time surcharge column appears per public holiday and special time, plus a total column.
In the Working Times Overview hourly surcharges are displayed in an additional column.
In all reports with internal costs, time surcharges are included at the internal hourly rate.
Note: This setting is a global default and can be deactivated per employee individually. Time surcharges are calculated from the introduction date of the module or the last executed Month-End Closing.
