The Travel Expense Management module covers the entire business travel process in ZEP – from recording travel times and meals through to approving the expense report and handing it over to accounting. Subsistence costs, mileage, and meal deductions are calculated automatically based on the stored rates. How to record trips and travel times is described in the article Recording Travel Times and Travel Expenses.
Product line availability
Note: Travel Expense Management is included in ZEP Operations and ZEP Business. In ZEP Clock it can be added as an exception for working time tracking.
Permissions
Tasks in travel expense management are divided by role:
Employees: Record their own trips, meals, and receipts and view a preview of their expense report.
Department managers (with the Locations & Departments area): Check the trips and expense reports of the employees in their departments and mark them as checked.
Project managers with budget responsibility: See trips and travel costs of their projects and evaluate them.
Administrators and Controllers: Run the central travel expense accounting, manage flat rates, reimbursement rules, and all master data of the module.
Additional menu items
The module makes the following additional menu items and tabs available in ZEP:
Project times
Travel times are recorded in the main menu Project times – as a regular project time entry with an activity configured as a travel activity. Once ZEP recognizes the activity as a trip, the travel fields Travel activity, Start, Destination, km, and Passengers appear.
In the same area, employees also record their meals per travel day (breakfast, lunch, dinner). The meal entries control the subsistence cost deductions and are available directly in the daily view of time recording.
Receipts
Via the main menu item Receipts, employees record their travel receipts (overnight stays, tickets, hospitality). When recording, they select the Type of receipt and, if needed, the Project. The expense report automatically includes the receipts of the settled period.
Employees > Reports
In an employee's detail page, the Travel and Costs column appears in the Reports menu for administrators, controllers, and department managers. The following entries are added by the travel expense module:
Travel – overview of all trips of the person
Cost accounting or credit notes for freelancers – the consolidated report
Disbursement documentation – documentation of reimbursements already paid out
With a subsistence cost procedure active, Meals with the meals recorded per travel day and Meal history with a log of all changes that other people made to the meals also appear.
Project > Billing settings > Travel settings
In project settings, the entry Travel settings appears under the Billing settings group. There you configure project-specific mileage, arrival allowances, and – where it differs from the standard – the treatment of subsistence costs.
Note: Project-specific travel settings are only available in ZEP Operations and ZEP Business.
Customer > Billing settings > Travel settings
Analogous to projects, the entry Travel settings appears under the Billing settings group in the customer. There you specify customer-wide defaults, e.g., whether arrival allowances are settled per day or per trip.
Note: Customer-specific travel settings are only available in ZEP Operations and ZEP Business.
Administration > Travel
Under Administration > Travel, a new administration tile appears with the following sub-items:
Subsistence costs – calculation procedure, overnight recognition, proportional distribution
Cost accounting – output format of the expense report, level of detail in reports
Vehicles – vehicle lists with mileage and passenger rates
Work Locations – location lists with country-specific flat rates
Administration > Export for Accounting
Under Administration > Export for Accounting > Checked Cost Accounting Reports, you hand over checked expense reports to accounting. The handover is available in ZEP Operations and ZEP Business through the Export for Accounting area. The handover includes DATEV-compatible formatting and cost center assignment.
Additional reports
The module adds the following reports to the section Reports > Employees:
Travel: List of all recorded trips with period, number of days, and work locations, optionally with a warning for incomplete records.
Meals: Overview of all meal deductions per employee with the option to review and correct them.
Cost Accounting: Reviewed and unreviewed expense reports per period including receipts, meal allowance, mileage and disbursement documentation.
Meal history: Log of all changes that other people made to employees' meals.
Details on each report are available in the article Reports – Travel Expense Management.
Distinction from other modules
Note: Travel Expense Management interacts with several other ZEP modules: With the Revenue & Costs area, you record travel-related receipts via the receipt inbox. With the Invoicing area, travel expenses can be passed through to customer invoices or billed with a markup. Via the Accounting Export module (ZEP Operations and ZEP Business), reviewed expense reports are transferred to DATEV, Lexware, or a generic format.