Invoice items are always created within the respective project under Project > [Project Name] > Billing > Invoice Items. The table is divided into the following sections: missing invoice items, planned invoice items, released invoice items, as well as invoiced and cancelled invoice items.

The missing invoice items table shows, on a project-specific basis, periods in which billable times or receipts were recorded but no invoice item yet exists for them. Clicking on an entry opens the form for a new invoice item directly, with the period pre-filled.

For periods that you deliberately do not invoice although billable times or receipts have been booked, you create an exclusion. ZEP then no longer shows these periods as missing invoice items and no longer in the Work-in-progress report. Existing exclusions appear in the table Periods excluded from the check and can be changed or deleted there. The exclusion only affects this display, it sets no lock and prevents no manual invoicing.

Click on + New Invoice Item and fill in the following fields:

For invoice items with 0% VAT, the position dialog additionally shows the Tax Exemption Reason field. Enter the legal reason for the exemption there, for example for services under the reverse-charge procedure or other VAT-exempt transactions. The tax exemption reason is transferred into electronic invoices (XRechnung and ZUGFeRD). For the revenue account "Umsatzsteuerfrei Bauträger" ZEP automatically enters it as "Umsatzsteuerfrei nach § 4 Nr. 9a UStG".

For workload items, enter an estimated amount – the actual invoiced amount will appear on the invoice. Optionally, you can activate the checkbox "Invoice at least this amount": if the actual workload is lower than the planned amount, the planned amount is invoiced. If it is higher, the higher amount is invoiced.

For workload items, the invoice attachment only lists the workload actually recorded, along with its amounts. If the checkbox "Invoice at least this amount" is activated, the total shown in the attachment can therefore be lower than the amount actually invoiced.

For each workload item, you control how the invoice table is displayed on the first page of the invoice. With Detailed listing of expenditure, quantity and unit price are output per item. With Grouping by employee, only selectable with the setting - All -, all employees with revenue appear in one row each, persons without revenue in the period are omitted. If one of these displays is active, the option Invoice at least this amount is not available.

For fixed price items, the planned amount is simultaneously the invoice amount. Use Apply planned amount to adopt the remuneration defined in the plan figures.

Invoice items differ by the source of their amount – from workload or as a flat rate.

For projects with type of accounting "workload based on hourly or daily rate". The invoiced amount is derived from the actual booked times and receipts within the service period. A workload item can additionally be broken down by employee, or working hours can be shown separately from receipts and travel costs.

Two settings let you fine-tune the invoiced amount:

With the setting - All -, you create a shared invoice item for all employees. If you select a single employee, you restrict the item to this person. With several such items, you invoice the employees separately. As soon as individual employee items exist for a period, no shared item for all employees can be created for the same period anymore.

All employees who are authorized to book time on the project are available for selection, regardless of whether they have already booked time or could only do so in the future. Project time, receipts, per diem allowances, mileage allowance, and travel flat rates appear separately on the invoice and in the invoice details for each employee position. If employees have different hourly or daily rates stored, ZEP displays separate lines with quantity, rate, and unit (hours or days) for these.

Once an individual employee position has been released and invoiced, ZEP locks the entry and modification of project time and receipts on the project for that employee for the affected billing period. Other employee positions within the same billing period are not affected.

For projects or individually invoiced tasks. The amount is derived from quantity x unit price and is adopted directly as the invoiced amount. The quantity can be entered with up to 5 decimal places.

For additional items independent of workload, based on the master data defined under Administration > Billing > Articles. When selecting an article, the unit price, unit, and currency are adopted automatically. Article invoice items do not affect the missing invoice items.

If the project is set to "tasks are invoiced individually", a separate invoice item must be created for each task. Depending on the task type, this is either a fixed price or workload item.

For projects with ticket-based billing. Bills the times and receipts recorded on a ticket. A separate invoice item is created for each ticket. Missing invoice items are determined per ticket and can be transferred directly into a new item. This billing type requires the Ticketing System add-on module.

Available for workload projects with "tasks are invoiced individually". Invoices receipts that were booked directly to the project without a task.

Available for workload projects with "tasks are invoiced individually". Invoices subsistence allowances and travel flat rates that apply across projects.

Contains a percentage value that is added to or subtracted from the subtotal of the invoice items above. A negative value creates a deduction. The Pld. amount entered for a surcharge item is used only for the sales forecast and does not appear on the actual invoice. The actual amount is determined only at billing.

The order of the invoice items determines which items a surcharge applies to. You can change the order in the list of invoice items by drag and drop: select an invoice item with the left mouse button and drag it to the desired position while holding the mouse button.

If you want to calculate a percentage surcharge on the entire invoice, place the surcharge item as the last item in the list.

For projects with type of accounting "flat rate" or "workload-based", as well as for individually invoiced tasks. Enables billing in multiple performance steps. A partial payment is also known as a down payment or advance invoice.

The following variants are available: partial payment by progress, final invoice by progress, partial payment fixed price, final invoice fixed price, partial payment as percentage of subtotal, and final invoice as percentage of subtotal.

To invoice according to performance status, proceed as follows:

The planned amount of a partial payment item results from performance status times total amount, less the partial payments already recorded. The planned final amount of the final invoice corresponds to the total amount less all partial payments. If you change or delete a partial payment, ZEP recalculates all following partial payments and the final invoice automatically. Partial payments can be invoiced together on one invoice, but only together with other partial payment items.

If the VAT rate changes between the partial payment and the final invoice, you define via the setting On VAT change what the new rate is applied to: retroactively to the total amount or only to the final amount of this current invoice (default).

For regularly recurring invoices, you can set a repetition. The following intervals are available: Monthly last days of the month, Monthly to the same date, Every 2 months last days of the month, Every 2 months to the same date, Every 3 months last days of the month, Every 3 months to the same date, Every 6 months last days of the month, Every 6 months to the same date, and Annually.

When a recurring invoice item is released, ZEP automatically creates the next invoice item for the following period.

As soon as you release a planned invoice item with a repetition, ZEP automatically transfers the repetition to the newly created follow-up item. For the released item itself, the repetition is removed, so that only one planned invoice item can carry a repetition at any time.

Select the desired invoice items and click Release. Alternatively, you can first check the invoice preview via Preview.

Releasing has the following effects:

In the locked period, you can no longer record, edit or delete times or receipts for the affected project, and the edit and delete icons are no longer shown for the affected project times. If you try to make a booking in this period, you receive a message stating that the date is already locked for invoicing.

If you need to change booked times or receipts of a released workload item, remove the release:

Under Billing > Invoice Items, administrators and controllers get a ZEP-wide overview of all invoice items. The following actions are available: