The employee file brings together an employee's data on one page: master data, contact details, user data, working time model, settings, bank details, and further information. This article describes how the file is structured and explains for each field where you maintain it and where the value takes effect in ZEP.

You open the employee file via Employees in the main menu and a click on the employee's username. The complete process from creating to deleting is described in the article Creating, editing and deleting employees.

The file consists of the subnavigation at the top and the cards below it. The subnavigation leads to all other areas of the employee, and the cards show the most important data at a glance.

The following entries appear above the file:

The individual entries are described in the article Employee administration.

The file has a two-column layout. A card only appears if data exists and you have the corresponding permissions.

The Working time model and Internal Hourly Rate cards only display the data. You edit it via the link on the card, see Working time model and Internal Hourly Rates.

Clicking the pencil icon on a card opens the Edit Employee dialog on the matching tab:

Click Save to apply the changes. You edit the bank details in a separate dialog via the pencil icon on the Bank details card.

You see the pencil icon on a card if you are allowed to edit its data, for contact details for example with the "Contact details" permission (Edit). In the dialog, fields for which you lack the edit permission are locked. Employees with the Administrator or System Administrator role can only be edited by administrators and system administrators.

You maintain the master data on the Master data tab of the Edit Employee dialog. In the file, it appears in the header card and in the User data card. These fields appear in the employee overview, in reports, in receipts, and in interface exports.

The profile picture appears in the employee list as an avatar, in the detail view, and in report overviews. You upload or remove it on the Master data tab. Image files up to 5 MB are allowed.

The username is the unique login identifier and a required field. It appears in every time entry, every audit log entry, every export, and in API interfaces. Up to 32 characters are allowed: letters, digits, period, @, hyphen, and underscore. The username must be unique, regardless of upper and lower case.

Recommended notations in ZEP:

Keep the convention consistent across the company so that reports and exports remain readable.

Because the username is used as a technical identifier in all dependent records, only administrators and system administrators can change it after the employee has been created.

The personnel number is the official identifier of the employee in ZEP. It appears in the employee list, in reports, in receipts, and in accounting exports and serves the internal assignment across all modules. It can be up to 32 characters long. If the number is already assigned when you create the employee, ZEP asks whether you want to create the employee anyway. Still, assign personnel numbers uniquely.

DATEV reads the personnel number as the personnel number in the payroll export. Personio and HR WORKS match employees via their respective interface ID, see Interface IDs. With the accounting export, the personnel number also serves as the creditor number unless a separate creditor number field is set.

The abbreviation, typically initials or a two- to four-character shortcut, is shown in the employee list, in task management, and in dense report tables as a space-saving short reference. Optional, but recommended for longer employee names. The abbreviation can be up to 32 characters long and must be unique.

First name (maximum 32 characters) and Surname (maximum 64 characters) are required. Salutation (Mr., Mrs.) is used in formal e-mails, in letters from the letter paper module, and in the automatic mail when sending access data. Title (Dr., Prof.) additionally appears on documents. Optionally, you can also enter a different Birth name.

The Date of birth field is optional. In the employee overview, you can show it as a column if you have read permission "Master Data". It is read by the Birthdays dashboard widget. When the widget is active, you see upcoming birthdays in the team there, which is useful for small gestures without a separate HR tool.

You select the language on the Settings tab. It determines this employee's ZEP interface, the date format, and the language of automatic mails. ZEP supports the following languages:

If no language is set, the company-wide default language applies.

Employees can also change their ZEP language themselves in their Profile via Edit my profile on the Settings tab, independent of this administration setting. The login page continues to display the company-wide default language, and the ZEP interface only switches to the personally selected language after logging in.

The department controls two central mechanisms: first the visibility, because Department Managers only see their own department, and second the assignment in cost-center reports. When the department changes, the assignment takes effect immediately, the old assignment is overwritten.

In the User role field, you select the employee's role. It controls which data the employee sees and which actions they can perform. Six standard roles are available, from Administrator (full access) via System administrator, Controller, Project Controller, and User with additional authorizations to User (self-administration), as well as your organization's custom user roles. What the roles include is described in the section Employee roles below.

In the employee file, the User data card shows the user role. You can change it in the Edit Employee dialog on the Master data tab. Nobody can change the role of their own user account.

The default price group takes effect when the employee books time on a project that does not specify its own price group. This allows mapping different rates, for example junior, senior, or freelancer rates. The project can override this default with its own price group.

Categories are an additional grouping dimension alongside the department. Typical examples are Development, Sales, Support, or functional tags like Working student or Senior. Multi-select is possible. You maintain the available categories in the administration under Employees > Categories. They are used in report filters without having to change the department structure.

Free text for information that does not fit into any other field, for example hints about availability or special arrangements. If a comment has been entered, it appears in the file as a separate Comment card. In the employee overview, you can show it as a column if you have read permission "Master Data". For ongoing notes about a person, HR Management offers its own Notes area.

Every person in ZEP has a user role. It decides which data the employee sees, which functions they may use, and whether they can edit their own or other people's entries. You select the user role when creating the employee in the Create new employee dialog and change it later in the employee file or, for several people at once, with the Change user role bulk action in the employee list. ZEP distinguishes between standard roles and custom user roles, which you select in the User role field, and additional authorisations, which result from other data relationships.

Six standard roles are available in the User role field. The overview shows their default permissions.

Nobody can change the role of their own user account. The role Project Controller is available in ZEP Track, ZEP Control, ZEP Operations, and ZEP Business. A person's user role can be changed by anyone who has the Roles & Assignments permission with Edit for this person. Without this permission, only User is available when creating an employee. Which roles you can assign also depends on your own role and is shown directly in the User role field.

The permissions of the individual roles are a default allocation, not a fixed framework. In the administration you adjust every permission per role to suit your organisation. How this works is described in the section Roles and permissions in the article My Company – Administration.

The base role for employees who maintain their own data in ZEP. A person with this role records and corrects their project times, attendance entries and receipts within the permitted entry period, sees reports on the data they have entered themselves and maintains their own profile. Other employees' data and cross-project reports are not accessible.

Builds on User and adds project- and customer-related views for team members with co-responsibility. In addition to the User rights:

Extends User with additional authorizations with a cross-project view for people in steering functions, without releasing employee data. In addition:

Extends Project controller with the read-only view on employees and customers. In addition:

Full access to all functions and data. A person with this role manages the base data (master data, licenses, configuration), corrects recorded times and receipts of all employees, uses central entry and controls project planning as well as Employee Management, Customer Management and project administration in full depth. The permissions of this role cannot be restricted — its column is locked in the permissions matrix.

For technical system administration. A person with this role looks after the administration and configuration of ZEP but by default has only limited insight into employee and yield data. Master data, contact details, working time model, bank details, and additional attributes of employees, prices and costs, as well as the yield reports on projects and customers remain closed, and with HR Management also tax, insurance, and contract data as well as the inventory. Creating and deleting projects is not included either. With HR Management, the role has access to Employee Notes, Employee Reviews, Employee Compensation, and Employee Skills by default. If the role needs further permissions, you add them under Roles & Permissions.

In addition to the standard roles, your organization can create custom user roles in the administration, for example for clerical staff or for read-only access. You select custom roles in the same User role field, where they are listed after the standard roles. Each person has exactly one user role: with a custom role, only its permissions apply, and the additional authorisations are added on top.

Custom user roles can be assigned by anyone who has the Roles & Assignments permission with Edit through their user role. Creating custom roles, defining their permissions, and deleting them is described in the section Custom user roles in the article My Company – Administration.

Beyond the user role, ZEP knows further authorisations that are not set in the User role field but via the respective data relationship, for example the assignment to a department, a customer, or a project. In addition to their user role, including a custom one, a person may hold one or more of these additional authorisations.

In the permissions matrix each of these authorisations has its own tab. The permissions in it match those of the standard roles but apply only to your own department, your own projects or your own customers.

Department Managers are designated as the head of the respective department in the administration. They manage the employees of their department and its subdepartments: master data, employment periods, roles (except administrator) and reports. In addition, they approve absences and trips.

Key account manager are stored on the individual customer data set. They see all data and reports of their customers, appear in account views and can be used as a filter in reports.

Like customer managers, with additional access to the billing of their own customers. By default the customer-related billing as well as the reports on revenue and yield of these customers are added.

Project managers with budget responsibility are stored on the individual project under the project members with the corresponding function. They control project planning, budget and billing of the project, see and release the team's project times, are responsible for offer and invoice releases and see the internal costs of their project.

Which rights the project manager receives in detail also depends on the person's user role. With the default permissions, the following applies:

Project managers without budget responsibility are stored on the individual project under the project members with the corresponding function. They lead the team professionally, see and release project times, but have no access to budget, internal costs or offer and invoice releases — these are handled by the project management with budget responsibility.

The user role also applies here, with the default permissions:

Project team members are assigned to a project without leading it. The assignment is made on the project under the project team members. By default it covers a restricted view of the data and the tickets of the projects the person is assigned to.

The file shows the settings in the Settings card. You edit them on the Settings tab of the Edit Employee dialog, organized into the language and the sections Attendance & Access, Clock App attendance recording, Overtime, Time and receipt entry (with the employee sign-off, the section is called Recording & Completion Sign-off), Billing, and Accounting. You maintain the employment and the interface IDs on the Master data tab. The visibility of many fields depends on the chosen employment type, the product line, or the booked modules.

The Employment field (also called employment type or contract type) appears when the option Activate freelancers and credits is set under Administration > Employees > Settings. In the Type field, three options are available. "Permanent employment" is the default case without additional fields. "Freelancer" additionally shows the VAT ID field. "Freelancer with credit note" further activates the Credit tab and, in the file, the Credit note settings card for automatic credit-note creation.

The selected employment type also affects the employee's cost statement:

The View own cost accounting setting in the Billing section, or View own credit note for freelancers with credit note, decides whether the employee can see their own cost statement or credit note in self-service, for example to check current hours and billed amounts. Active by default, can be deactivated per employee.

Disabling this setting hides not only the Cost Accounting or Credit notes menu item for the employee, but also the Disbursement Documentation menu item under My Reports.

Optional accounting identifier. The field appears if, in the settings of the accounting export, the option Creditor number must be specified for each employee as a separate field is selected under Employee creditor number. Otherwise, the personnel number serves as the creditor number.

Here you control whether the employee clocks attendance times and whether these are considered in reports. The fields are in the Attendance & Access section, and the switch is called Include attendances.

The checkbox Start/end attendance in the web interface additionally determines whether the employee can also clock in and out directly in ZEP, without using the ZEP Clock App or a terminal. When this option is active, after logging in the employee finds the action "Clock in (come)" in their profile menu at the top right, and "Clock out (go)" to end it.

For multiple employees at once, you set both settings in the employee overview with the bulk action Change inclusion of attendance times, see Employee overview.

With this setting, you define whether the employee clocks times exclusively via the ZEP Clock app. They then cannot enter or edit times by hand. You find the Deactivate manual time recording selection on the Settings tab in the Attendance & Access section, and when creating an employee in the Settings step of the wizard. Three values are available: "Default (Yes)" or "Default (No)" applies the default from Employees – Administration, "Yes" deactivates manual time recording, and "No" allows it. Useful in field service where manual corrections should be avoided.

In the Clock App attendance recording section, you define how the employee uses the ZEP Clock app. The Use single user login checkbox applies to signing in with their own access in single-user mode. In the PIN for multi-user login field, you store a PIN of one to four digits for signing in on a shared device in multi-user mode. With Location transmission, you define whether the location is transmitted with every clock-in, for example as proof for field-service employees. Both modes are described in the article ZEP Clock App.

Chip management is done centrally in the administration under System > RFID chips. If a chip is assigned to the employee, the Settings tab shows the RFID chip checkbox with the chip number in the Attendance & Access section. If you clear the checkbox and save, ZEP removes the assignment. You assign a chip in the administration.

The Include subsistence allowances checkbox in the Billing section activates the reimbursement of additional costs during business trips. If the travel expense module is configured for Austrian calculation logic, you additionally choose under Accounting procedure between "Calendar Day Regulation" (flat rate per calendar day) and "24-Hour Rule" (calculation based on actual travel duration). Which variant is fiscally suitable is best clarified with your tax advisor.

A detailed description of the calculation methods and the configuration in the administration can be found in the article Employee settings – Travel Expense Management.

For every payroll or HR interface that is set up, a separate ID field appears on the Master data tab under Interfaces. In the file, the header card shows the maintained IDs. As long as the connection is not established, the field stays hidden. The ID is required for synchronization and assigns the ZEP employee to the corresponding record in the third-party system. Without it, the employee is skipped during sync. For DATEV it is enough if the personnel number in ZEP matches the one in DATEV. In that case the field can stay empty.

Via the release date, employees release their project times. The release date marks the cutoff date up to which the employee has released their times and receipts. This confirms that their entries are complete up to this day. This is a typical step before the month-end closing.

Employees enter the release date themselves in the project time entry form. In the calendar-week row above the day columns, the most recent "Released until" date is displayed and updated with a click. Once entered, project times, receipts, and absences up to and including the release date are locked for the employee — and the date cannot be reverted by the employee. You can change or remove the release date afterwards in the employee file if you have the "Employee Settings" (View) and "Time, Receipts, Travel Expenses" (Edit) permissions for the employee.

The released date is visible in several places:

Backward recording allows the employee to enter project times or receipts retrospectively, even if the global entry lock already applies. To do this, activate the Additional backward recording days switch in the Time and receipt entry section and enter a number of days under For project time (in ZEP Clock For working time) and For receipts. Typical values are 7, 14, or 30 days depending on industry and internal workflow.

Optionally, you set a future date under Valid until. After this date, backward recording is locked again, sensible as a time-limited special right, for example during a catch-up run for the month-end closing.

Cost center and cost unit are used in accounting and billing exports. Centrally, the DATEV export reads both values. The cost center is selected from master data. You enter the cost unit as numeric or alphanumeric, depending on the Cost unit format setting of the Export for Accounting. This way the export assigns the employee's bookings to the matching cost center and cost unit.

With this import right active, the employee may import their own times via Excel file, in addition to manual entry. Practical when times are first recorded in other tools and then bulk-transferred to ZEP.

In ZEP Track, ZEP Control, ZEP Operations, and ZEP Business, the field is called Project times import: project time bookings with project, activity, date, duration and comment are imported. In ZEP Clock, the field is called Working times import: plain working time bookings with date, start and end time are imported. The underlying Excel import function is identical — the columns of the template depend on the product line.

The Block login without OAuth checkbox in the Attendance & Access section only takes effect if an alternative login method (OAuth or LDAP) is configured in the administration. If it is selected, the employee signs in exclusively via the alternative method. The classic ZEP login with username and password is locked. Recommended for centrally managed identities to keep the authentication policy consistent.

You find the overtime setting on the Settings tab in the Overtime section. You maintain the vacation entitlement in the employment period, and starting values for overtime and vacation via the employee's subnavigation.

The Calculate and show overtime checkbox turns on overtime calculation for the employee. Without it, ZEP keeps no overtime balance and no time supplements for them, for example if overtime is compensated with the salary. The balance and the Overtime & breaks dashboard tile are then not shown to administrators either.

Overtime and remaining leave an employee carries over from the previous year are entered as a starting value via the Balancing overtime and holidays entry in the employee's subnavigation under Employee Management, column Activities. The same form carries both figures, and there is no separate route for remaining leave.

Open the row of the month that carries the (Starting balance) addition. ZEP sets it to the first month of employment, or to the month in which the area was introduced. For each figure you then choose between two booking types:

Always enter the value as a positive number. The direction is determined solely by the booking type you choose. That is also why ZEP shows only the input field matching your selection.

On the Contact tab, you capture private and business contact information, which the file shows in the Contact details card. All fields are optional by default. One exception: if the option "Send Link via Email" is selected under Password Assignment during creation, the email address is required so the employee receives the link to set their password.

Street (maximum 64 characters), ZIP (maximum 32), City (maximum 64), and Country (maximum 64) form the postal address. With Address supplement, you show two more lines, Address supplement 1 and Address supplement 2, each with a maximum of 64 characters. It is used internally, in letters from the letter paper module, in credit notes for freelancers, and in DATEV payroll as the employee's address.

The email address is required when sending the password link and can be up to 64 characters long. ZEP accepts each email address only once. This also matters for interfaces such as Personio, which often match employees by email address.

If you change the email address, ZEP applies the new address to the calendar appointments in which the employee is entered. If this does not succeed for all appointments, ZEP points this out after saving. As long as the employee has their own appointments or calendar shares, you can change the email address but not clear it.

When employees sign in via OAuth (for example Microsoft Entra ID or Google Workspace), you additionally capture the ID of the sign-in service. The field is on the Contact tab below the email address and carries the name of your sign-in service, for example "Google ID". Enter the employee's email address at the sign-in service there, up to 64 characters. This assigns the ZEP account to the account at the sign-in service on login. Each ID can only be assigned to one employee. When creating an employee, you capture the ID in the first step of the wizard.

You additionally secure the login through single sign-on with your identity provider including multi-factor authentication, through password policies and through permitted IP addresses. On request, ZEP sets up two-factor authentication via the Duo Security service.

Three fields are available: Company Phone, Private Phone, and Mobile (Mobile phone on the card), all with up to 32 characters. The Fax field only appears if a fax number is already stored. Used internally only, for example for internal directories or emergency contact channels, and can be maintained at any time via the employee data.

The bank account is read by several modules: the travel expense module for reimbursement of travel costs, the DATEV export for payroll transfer, and the credit-note module for freelancer payouts. With active reimbursement or credit-note workflows, the bank account is therefore required. Without these functions, the area remains purely optional.

In the file, the Bank details card shows the data. Via the pencil icon on the card, you open a separate dialog with the fields Account holder, if different (maximum 150 characters), Bank (maximum 64), IBAN, and BIC (maximum 11). The Account no. and Bank code fields only appear if values are already stored there. You can view and edit the bank details with the "Bank details" permission.

The Credit tab and the Credit note settings card only appear if the Employment is set to "Freelancer with credit note" on the Master data tab. To choose this employment type at all, the option Activate freelancers and credits must be set under Administration > Employees > Settings.

You select the currency from the currencies available in ZEP. Suggested is the department currency or the base currency. The tax rate from master data is applied to credit-note items, typically 19 % for German freelancers or 0 % for small-business regulation. With the option Apply this tax rate to receipts also, you also apply the tax rate to the receipts in the credit note.

Independent address for the credit note in case it differs from the employee contact, for example when the freelancer bills via a limited company or sole proprietorship. With Different address for credit, you show the fields Name, Street, Address line 2, Address line 3, ZIP, City, and Country.

In the Text for credit section, you store individual texts for the header and footer of the credit note with Above text and Bottom text. Above typically recipient salutation or service reference, below payment notes or legal mandatory information such as small-business clauses. Both fields support formatting, text modules, and placeholders.