For the accounting export to work end-to-end, several master data records in ZEP need to be maintained. Most of them are not located in the Export for Accounting module itself but in the modules that produce the data – receipt and payment types in Prices & Receipts, revenue accounts in Invoicing as well as required fields directly on the customer and the employee.

When you set KOST1 or KOST2 in the Cost Centers & Cost Units tab of the basic settings to a cost-center option, the entry Administration > Export for Accounting > Cost Centers additionally appears. There you create the cost centers of your company.

The maintained cost centers are then assigned on the data objects, depending on the KOST choice:

Cost units are not managed in dedicated master data but are entered directly on the project or task as a free-text field.

Under Administration > Prices & Receipts > Receipt types, the form of every receipt type is extended by two required fields when the accounting export is active:

In a freshly set up ZEP these values are pre-filled. If you activate Export for Accounting in an existing ZEP later, you have to fill in account and tax code for your receipt types manually. If one of the fields is missing, ZEP refuses the export.

If a receipt type can be used with multiple tax rates, enter a dedicated expense account and tax code per tax rate. On export, ZEP automatically picks the matching account based on the tax rate of the receipt.

For business entertainment expenses, the tax-relevant 70/30 split applies: enter an expense account for the 70% share (tax-deductible) and an expense account for the 30% share (non-deductible). On export, ZEP automatically creates two booking lines with the respective shares.

Under Administration > Prices & Receipts > Payment types, you enter the account per payment type on which bookings of that payment type are recorded. For each variant of company payment (credit card, bank transfer, petty cash, …) you can create a dedicated payment type with its own account. With different payment types, the same account may also be used.

A special rule applies to the Reimbursement payment type: instead of a fixed account, the personnel number or the creditor number of the employee is used as the account on export. The personnel or creditor number is therefore mandatory for every employee who receives reimbursements – without it, the cost export for that employee cannot run.

If the Customer debtor number setting in the basic settings is set to force as separate field, the additional required field Debtor number appears on the customer. Maintain it per customer under Customers > General > Customer & Billing. Without a debtor number you cannot export the customer's invoices.

If the option is set to Customer number instead, the ZEP customer number (Cust.No) is used as the debtor number and no additional field is shown.

With the accounting export active, each customer additionally gets the country code: domestic, EU or third country. For existing customers, the country code defaults to domestic. Maintain the country code per customer under Customers > General > Customer & Billing.

The country code controls which revenue accounts are available for selection in invoice items. If the country code is wrong, ZEP suggests a revenue account that does not match the customer context, and the export results in incorrect bookings.

Optionally maintain the VAT ID per customer under Customers > General > Customer & Billing in the VAT ID field. With the Invoicing module active, the VAT ID is shown on the invoice between the customer number and the first additional customer field. In the accounting export, the VAT ID is written into the corresponding DATEV field (field 40 EU country and VAT ID). If the field is empty, it remains empty in the export and is not shown on the invoice.

The same applies to employees: with the setting Force employee creditor number as a separate field, the Creditor number field appears on the employee. Maintain it per employee under Employees > General. Without a creditor number, no cost export is possible for that employee – ZEP also uses the creditor number as the account for the Reimbursement payment type (see Payment types section).

If the option is set to Personnel number, the ZEP personnel number (Emp.No) is used as the creditor number.

Revenue accounts are not part of the accounting-export module but are maintained in Invoicing. With the accounting export active, the revenue account becomes a required field on every invoice item – without a revenue account, the item cannot be billed and the invoice cannot be exported. The full description of the revenue-account master data is in the Invoicing collection; the points below describe what changes specifically through the Export for Accounting module.

Maintain revenue accounts under Administration > Invoicing > Revenue accounts. Each revenue account has the following fields:

For the same combination of country code and VAT rate, several revenue accounts can exist. They are then offered for selection on the invoice item. Use + New revenue account to create an additional account with the desired VAT rate.

On the project under General > Data & Plan, tab Customer & Billing, the field Default revenue account is available. The selection contains all revenue accounts matching the VAT and country code of the customer. For new invoice items of the project, this account is automatically pre-filled. For projects with billing to multiple customers, the setting applies to the primary customer.

On every invoice item you select the revenue account from the matching accounts in your master data. The selection follows the tax rate of the item and the country code of the customer. During billing, ZEP checks that every item has a valid revenue account. If one is missing, the invoice is not billed and a corresponding message appears.

The state of an invoice is frozen at the time of billing. The same applies to the later export:

When you activate the Export for Accounting module in an existing ZEP: