Employee management is the foundation for all other functions in ZEP. This article shows how to create employees with the wizard, maintain their data in the Employee File, send them a login link or reset their password, end their employment period, and pseudonymize or delete the entire record when needed.

Which fields are available for an employee depends on your product line and the modules you have booked. A complete field reference with all availability notes is in the article Employee Data.

Administrators define who may create, edit, pseudonymize, or delete employees under Administration > My Company > Roles & Permissions in the Employees area. The table lists the relevant permission for each action. Administrators always have all permissions, and their role cannot be restricted. How to adapt the permissions to your organization is described in the article My Company – Administration.

You create new employees with a wizard that guides you step by step through master data, working time model, project allocation, and settings. This way the record is complete right after saving: you do not need to add the employment period, regular working hours, or project allocations afterwards.

How to create a new employee:

Each time you click Next, ZEP checks the entries of the current step and shows missing or invalid information directly at the field. The wizard consists of these steps:

In the first step, you enter user data, personnel data, and contact details. The required fields are Username, Password Assignment, First name, Last Name, and User role. You can show more fields using the links Extended personal data, Address supplement, and Contact details.

In the second step, you define the employment period and regular working hours. The preset values come from the defaults under Administration > Employees > Settings, described in Employees – Administration.

In the third step, you allocate the employee to projects so that they can record project times right away. Click Assign another project to add a row, then select the project, the price group, and the period with From and optionally To. The period must lie within the employment period and the project duration. You can choose from the projects you are allowed to allocate and whose duration overlaps the employment period.

With Copy Project Allocation From Another Employee, you take over a colleague's projects. You select the employee, optionally the price group "Of the Employee", and with Copy periods also their periods. If you then change the employment period in the Working time model step, ZEP moves the entered allocations into the new period.

In the fourth step, you define how the employee works in ZEP. Which sections appear depends on your product line and the active areas.

The fifth step appears only for the type "Freelancer with credit". Here you select the currency and VAT and define whether this tax rate also applies to receipts. Optionally, you can store a different address for the credit note as well as an upper and a lower text. Details are described in the article External Employees and Credit Notes.

When you click Save, ZEP creates the employee with all master data and settings in one step, together with the employment period including holiday entitlement, the regular working hours, the project allocations, backward recording, and a first internal hourly rate. ZEP then opens the Employee File of the new employee. If you are not allowed to view the file, for example because the employee belongs to another department, you return to the employee list.

How the employee gets access is determined by the Password Assignment from the first step:

You find all data of an employee in their Employee File. Open Employees in the main menu and click the username in the list. The Employee File shows the data in cards, for example Master data, Contact details, User data, Working time model, Settings, and Bank details. Which cards you can see and edit depends on your permissions. What each card contains is described in the article Employee Data. The Employee Dashboard shows the employee's times, absences, and vacation at a glance. With HR Management, you also maintain contract details, compensation, skills, and employee reviews in the file, see Feature Overview – HR Management.

Clicking the pencil icon of a card opens the Edit Employee dialog directly in the matching tab. The dialog has the tabs Master data, Contact, Settings, and, for the type "Freelancer with credit note", also Credit. The fields correspond to those of the wizard. Which fields each tab contains is described in the article Employee Data. Save your changes with Save.

Which tabs and fields you can see and change depends on your permissions. Fields for which you lack the Edit permission are locked. For example, you see the Contact tab with the View permission for "Contact details". You change the user role in the Master data tab if you have the "Roles & Assignments" (Edit) permission. Your own user role is changed by another authorized person. In the same tab, only administrators and system administrators can change the username, see Changing the username.

You edit the bank details via the pencil icon of the Bank details card in a separate dialog with the fields Account holder, if different, Bank, IBAN, and BIC. This requires the "Bank details" (Edit) permission.

You maintain regular working hours and employment periods on the Working time model page. You open it via the link Go to working time model in the card of the same name or via the menu item Employee File > Working time model of the employee. The page shows the employment periods and, below them, the regular working hours.

ZEP uses the username as an identifier in bookings, reports, and interfaces. Administrators and system administrators change it in the Edit Employee dialog in the Master data tab: they overwrite the Username field and save. The same rules apply as when creating: up to 32 characters, unique regardless of upper and lower case. The name must also not be in use as the login of a customer contact. All existing data such as project times, receipts, absences, roles, and permissions carry over to the new name.

Employees maintain part of their data themselves in their Profile: profile picture, salutation, title, date of birth, address, phone numbers, and bank details. This requires the "General data" permission in the My Permissions section of Roles & Permissions. The email address is changed in the Employee File by authorized users with the "Contact details" (Edit) permission, the personnel number by those with "Master Data" (Edit).

You can send an already created employee a login link or reset their password at any time. In ZEP both run through the same function. Who initiates the change determines the route. The three sections below describe it in the Employee File, in your own profile, and for a forgotten password. Sending a login link is also how you invite new employees to ZEP.

Open the Employee File and click Reset password in the User data card. Under Reset via, choose one of two ways:

Sending the email requires a stored email address. If none is set, the dialog offers only the one-time password. You see the Reset password action if you have the "Master Data" (Edit) permission for the employee in Roles & Permissions. Only administrators and system administrators with this permission can reset the password of administrators and system administrators.

You can change your own password at any time. Open Profile via your profile picture at the top right and click Change password in the User data card. To confirm, enter your current password and then set a new one.

If you have forgotten your password, use Forgot password on the login page. Enter your username or email address, and you will receive an email with a link to set a new password. For security reasons, the link is valid for 24 hours.

When employees leave the company, enter their leaving date as the end of the employment period. This keeps past bookings and reports unchanged. From the month after the leaving date, the person no longer appears in the default employee list.

How to end an employment period:

When opened, the employee list shows the employees who are employed from the first day of the current month. To show former employees, for example for reports on the past, use the Employment Period filter, see Employee Overview.

Pseudonymization replaces personal data with generic values without destroying the accounting history. It applies when former employees exercise their right to be forgotten under GDPR Article 17 towards the system while past data must remain available for reports.

How to pseudonymize an employee:

ZEP always replaces the first name, last name, and username with generic values, for example Vorname001, Nachname001, and user001. ZEP automatically picks the next free number. ZEP deletes all other personal data: email address, postal address, phone numbers, bank details, date of birth, personnel number, and profile picture. ZEP overwrites the password with a random value. This ends access with the previous credentials.

Project times, receipts, and other bookings remain under the new pseudonymized name so that reports and evaluations of the past stay consistent. To pseudonymize, you need the "Delete Employee" permission.

Deleting removes an employee completely from ZEP, including all dependent data. This action only makes sense for test accounts or records created by mistake. In all other cases, pseudonymization is the right choice because it preserves the history. Deleting is not required to avoid license costs. Ending the employment period is sufficient, see Deactivating employees.

How to delete an employee:

When deleting, ZEP automatically removes all dependent records: project and task assignments, employment periods, internal hourly rates, monthly employee data, as well as overtime and vacation accounts. To delete, you need the "Delete Employee" permission. Your own record is deleted by another authorized person.