Employees are ZEP's central data object — everything else hangs from them: project assignments, time tracking, absences, travel expenses, reports, and the handover to payroll and accounting. A well-maintained employee record is the foundation for every other ZEP process.
You find all of an employee's data in the employee file, you create new employees with a wizard, and the employee dashboard summarizes the key figures. These articles guide you through the entire topic, from concept to creation and maintenance, to reports and edge cases such as external employees or ending an employment relationship.
Note: Employee management is included in all product lines. Which fields and actions are visible depends on your product line.
Employees as ZEP's central data object
An employee in ZEP is more than an entry in a personnel list. They are the person to whom ZEP links the following data:
Master data such as name, personnel number, employment type, language, and address
Organizational assignment via the department
Project and customer responsibility via project assignments and key account manager assignment
Time data from project time tracking, attendance, and absences
Travel data from trips, receipts, and per diem allowances
Billing-relevant values such as hourly rate, price group, and credit notes
Permissions via the assigned user role, either a standard role or a custom user role
Interface IDs for handover to external systems such as DATEV, Personio, or HR WORKS
Personnel data such as contract details, compensation, skills, and employee reviews with HR Management
This bundling makes the employee record the pivot point of ZEP. Every time entry, every report, and every invoice references an employee.
Integration into the ZEP data flow
The employee sits at the center of a network of data objects that all reference each other. The following diagram shows the most important connections:
The most important effect chains in words:
Employment period → visibility: In selection lists and reports, an employee appears for the periods in which they are employed.
Department → filters and permissions: Control who sees the employee in lists and who may approve absences.
Project assignment → time tracking: Only assignment to a project enables recording project times.
Key account manager → reports and dashboards: Employees assigned as key account managers appear in revenue and account reports as filter and view anchors.
Employment type and hourly rate → billing: Determine whether and how the hours worked are invoiced or settled as credit notes.
Personnel number and interface IDs → external systems: Are the matching criterion when syncing with DATEV, Personio, HR WORKS, and other interfaces.
Features at a glance
Employee management consists of several building blocks that work together. The following sections briefly introduce them and refer to the detailed articles.
Employee overview
The list under Employees in the main menu shows your employees with search, filters, freely selectable columns, favorites, and export. With bulk actions, you change the user role, department, categories, work break regulation, and other details for several employees at once. Details are described in the article Employee overview.
Employee File
Clicking the username opens the employee file. It shows master data, contact details, user data, working time model, settings, and bank details as cards on one page. Via the subnavigation, you reach assignments, activities such as project times and receipts, planning, and the employee's reports. Details are described in the articles Employee data and Employee administration.
Wizard for new employees
You create new employees via Create new employee. A wizard guides you step by step through master data, working time model with employment period and regular working hours, project allocation, and settings. For freelancers with credit notes, the Credit step follows. Details are described in the article Creating, editing and deleting employees.
Employee dashboard
An employee's dashboard shows tiles for project times, open absence requests, upcoming absences and events, overtime and annual holiday, as well as the distribution of project hours and planning. Which tiles appear depends on the activated areas and your permissions. Details are described in the article Employee Dashboard.
Self-service in the profile
Employees maintain their own details in their Profile: address and contact details, bank details, language and other personal settings, as well as their own password. With HR Management, their own skills are added. Whether employees may edit their address, contact, and bank details themselves is controlled by the permission "General data".
User roles
What employees can see and edit in ZEP is determined by their user role. In addition to the standard roles, you create custom user roles with individually set permissions and assign them to employees in the employee file or via a bulk action. How this works is described in the section Roles and permissions.
Tasks in employee management
The following articles cover all typical tasks around employees:
Creating, editing, and deleting employees — the workflow from new creation to deactivation or full removal.
Employee data — the structure of the employee file and the reference for every field, including roles and permissions.
Employee administration — the subnavigation on the employee with working time model, assignments, activities, and administration.
Employee overview — the list with search, filters, columns, bulk actions, and export.
Employee Dashboard — an employee's key figures at a glance.
External employees and credit notes — edge case for freelancers and viewing one's own credit notes.
Employee reports — standard reports around employees.
Module-dependent extensions on the employee
With each area included in your product line or added to it, additional fields and actions appear on the employee. The following overview shows the most important extensions:
Absences and overtime — vacation entitlement, employment-period details, overtime display on the dashboard. (More on this module)
Travel expense management — per diem allowances, travel expense configuration. (More on this module)
Revenue & Costs — default price group, hourly rates, and cost rates. (More on this module)
Locations and departments — department assignment, department management, and filtering by department. (More on this module)
ZEP Terminal — RFID chip assignment and stamp actions at the terminal. (More on the hardware)
HR Management — contract details, compensation, tax & insurance, skills, employee reviews, notes, and inventory in the employee file. HR Management is included in ZEP Business. In ZEP Clock it can be added. (More on this module)
Which of these extensions are active for you depends on your product line and the areas you have added. In the article Employee data you can see for each field the conditions under which it is shown.