Departments map the hierarchical organizational structure of your company in ZEP. You can create locations as top-level units and departments as sub-units, assign employees, and define department leaders.
Roles & Access Rights
Administrators
Create, edit, and delete departments
Assign employees to departments and enter department leaders
Access to all department views
Controllers
Read access to all departments
Department Leaders
View and manage their own departments and sub-departments
Depending on basic settings: create employees, customers, and projects, and modify internal hourly rates
Department Overview
The Departments menu item opens the department overview with all created departments and locations. The view can be displayed as a list or tree structure. Use the search to quickly find individual departments; clicking a department opens the detail view.
Creating Departments
Administrators can create a new organizational unit via Add new department. The following fields are available in the dialog:
Short code (required): Internal abbreviation for the department
Name (required): Full name of the department
Currency: Department-specific currency for internal cost reports – only available with the Revenue & Costs module
Parent department: Parent department or location in the hierarchy
Notes: Internal note for the department
Tip: Create locations as top-level units without a parent department. Departments then receive the respective location as their parent, mapping the full company hierarchy.
Department Data
In the department detail view – Data tab – you can view and edit the master data of the department. The following fields are available:
Short code: Internal abbreviation for the department
Name: Full name of the department
Inactive: Inactive departments can no longer be selected but are retained for historical reports
Parent department: Parent department or location in the hierarchy
Sub-departments: Automatically generated overview of all direct sub-departments
Notes: Internal notes for the department
In the Settings tab of the department detail view, you can configure department-specific email header and footer content using a simple HTML editor.
Department Currency
Note: The department currency is only available in connection with the Revenue & Costs module.
By default, your company’s base currency applies to all departments. For departments in different countries, you can specify a separate currency per department. The department currency affects the following areas:
Internal hourly rates of employees are specified in the department currency
The department-level cost report is generated in the department currency
Expense reports and payout documentation are preferably created in the employee’s department currency
If you change the currency of a department or reassign an employee to a different department, the internal hourly rates are not automatically converted to the new currency.
Currencies and exchange rates are managed under Administration > Prices & Receipts > Exchange Rates. There you also define the base currency for your company.
Project and customer currencies are independent of the department currency. Project-related reports are generally created in the respective project currency.
Assigning Department Leaders
In the Department Leader tab of the department view, administrators can register employees as department leaders. A department can have multiple department leaders. Department leaders receive extended permissions in ZEP according to the basic settings.
ZEP distinguishes two types of department leader assignment:
Direct assignment: Employees explicitly assigned to this department as department leaders. This assignment can be removed.
Implicit assignment: Employees who hold department leader rights for this department because they are assigned as department leader to a superior department. This assignment cannot be deleted.
In the employee profile under Assignments > Department Leader you can see which departments an employee is registered as a leader for.
Managing Employees
The Employees tab shows all employees assigned to this department. Administrators – and, depending on the basic settings, department leaders – can add new employees or assign existing ones via the Add employee button. Assignment to multiple departments is possible.
Tip: The department assignment can alternatively be set directly in the employee record – in the edit form under Employees > [Name] > Data.
Projects and Customers
Note: The Projects and Customers tabs are not available in ZEP Clock. They are available in ZEP Compact and ZEP Professional.
The Projects tab shows all projects assigned to this department. The Customers tab lists the associated customers. These links enable department-based reports at the project and customer level. In the cost report under Reports > Departments, project and customer assignments feed directly into the breakdown by internal and customer-related projects.
The department assignment can also be set directly in the project or customer master data – not only via these tabs in the department view.
Working Time Overview
Note: The working time overview is only available in connection with the Absences & Overtime module.
Department leaders can view the working time overview in the Working Time Overview tab of the department detail view. It shows all employees of the department including sub-departments with their booked hours per day for a selected month, enabling a quick check of whether all employees have fully recorded their time.
Color coding helps identify issues at a glance:
Yellow: Days with more than 10 hours of booked working time
Red background: Days where recorded time is more than 50 % below standard working hours without a defined absence reason (vacation, time off in lieu)
Gray: Saturdays, Sundays, and public holidays
Using the Lock employee button, a department leader can lock individual employees or all employees in the department for the selected month. The effects of an employee lock are analogous to month-end closing: no project times, receipts, or absences can be recorded, changed, or deleted for that month – not even by administrators.
Cover Page
The Cover Page tab in the department detail view provides a structured overview of all important master data for the department.
Deleting Departments
Administrators can remove a department via Actions > Delete department. Deletion is only possible if no active employees, projects, or customers are still assigned to the department. Alternatively, you can deactivate the department by setting the Inactive field. Inactive departments no longer appear in reports but are retained for historical evaluations.