The customer data are the central master record of a customer in ZEP. All fields you maintain here have effects in projects, offers, invoices and customer-related reports. This article describes every field per tab — what it does, which defaults apply and which licenses unlock it.

You open the customer data via the main menu Customers, select a customer and switch to the sub-menu Data. The record opens in three tabs: General, Contact data and Billing. The full lifecycle (creating, editing, deleting) is described in the article Creating, editing and deleting customers; all sub-areas on the customer (addresses, contact persons, key account managers, billing settings) are documented in the article Customer administration.

The tab General contains the identity-defining master data of the customer — number, name, industry, department and classifications for filters and reports.

The customer number is the technical reference to the customer — unique within the tenant and a mandatory field on creation. With active automatic numbering, ZEP suggests the next free Cust.No; it can be overwritten.

You change the Cust.No later via the pencil icon next to the display: enter the new number, confirm with Execute and close the dialog Change data with Save. The change takes effect immediately, also for historical data.

The debtor number is the value ZEP passes to accounting — either as a standalone number or identical to the customer number, depending on the general setting. It is the account reference for DATEV, Lexware or SAP exports.

Via the checkbox Inactive you set the customer to inactive. Inactive customers no longer appear in selection lists of projects, offers or reports — but the historical data are preserved in full. The workflow is described in the article Creating, editing and deleting customers.

The name is the display name of the customer and a mandatory field. It appears on invoices, in reports and in the customer cockpit. The optional name suffix is printed below the name and is useful for legal form indicators such as „GmbH & Co. KG" or a branch designation.

The industry is a filter and segmentation criterion across all customer lists and reports. The selection is maintained under Administration > Customers > Industries. A customer can be assigned to exactly one industry.

The identifier for the country classifies the customer for accounting exports (domestic, EU foreign, third country) and in some interfaces controls the tax indicators. The selection is made from a standard list.

The department of customer decides which department managers may see and edit the customer. It is also the default for new projects of this customer. A standard department can be set in Administration > Locations and Departments.

With categories you classify customers multi-dimensionally — typical examples are sales region, customer segment or strategic status. A customer can belong to several categories at the same time. The list is maintained under Administration > Customers > Categories.

Categories are filters in the customer overview and in most customer-related reports. They also control the automatic assignment of price groups (with the Revenue and Costs module).

The remark is a free text field for internal notes. It does not appear on invoices or other customer-facing documents. Useful for hints on payment behavior, contractual particularities or organizational contact channels.

With dynamic attributes you extend the customer master record with your own fields — texts, drop-downs, date or number fields. Maintenance and assignment is done in the administration under Dynamic Attributes with category Customer.

The tab Contact data bundles the postal and electronic contact information of the customer — address, phone, website and email. These fields are used in invoices, documents and in the address preparation for shipping processes.

Three address lines are available to accommodate street, house number, P.O. box or further address components. ZEP takes the lines 1:1 into invoices and documents — a two-line postal address with house number and address suffix is therefore possible just like a pure P.O. box address in a single line.

The fields ZIP Code and Location together form the delivery address. Both are used for regional reports and for the machine-readable address parsing for ZUGFeRD or XRechnung. ZIP code and location are additionally used in regional reports and for sorting the customer list.

The field Country holds the country name in full notation (for document preparation). It is separate from the identifier for the country in the General tab — the latter classifies the customer for accounting exports.

Telephone and Fax are pure display fields in the customer cockpit. They are not automatically printed on documents but can be embedded via placeholder in templates. The Fax field is preserved for historical reasons and is unused in most setups.

The URL accommodates the customer's homepage. The field is clickable — a click opens the address in a new browser tab and enables a direct jump to the customer's web presence, typically including the protocol prefix (https://).

The Email address is the primary contact address of the customer. It is not automatically used for invoice dispatch — that is done via the address management on the customer (see Customer administration). Multiple email addresses can be separated with comma or semicolon, depending on the setting under Administration > My Company > Email.

The tab Billing defines how the customer is invoiced — procedure, terms, payment modalities and tax indicators. Most fields of this tab require the Invoicing module.

The accounting procedure determines whether you issue invoices to the customer or process an A/P credit memo. The selection is the default for every new project of this customer and controls the subsequent invoicing workflow.

With the checkbox Automated invoicing you include the customer in the automatic invoicing run. ZEP creates invoice drafts for projects of this customer in a configurable rhythm. Conditions for triggering (e.g. on project completion or at month-end) are configured centrally in the administration.

Activates the direct debit option that ZEP uses to collect invoices from the automatic run directly. Prerequisites are valid bank account details (IBAN/BIC) and a SEPA mandate. The actual collection is transmitted to the bank as a generated SEPA XML file.

The supplier number is the number under which you are registered as a supplier at the customer. It is important for EDI exchange, order number mapping and invoice recognition on the customer side. In some interfaces it is automatically taken over into machine-readable invoices (XRechnung, ZUGFeRD) as the supplier reference.

The buyer reference (Leitweg-ID) is an electronic identifier for public sector clients in Germany. It is mandatory for XRechnung dispatch to public authorities and is used in the B2G invoicing standard as routing information.

The Tax ID (USt-IdNr.) is mandatory for intra-Community supplies and services within the EU. It controls the reverse charge procedure and appears on invoices in the corresponding indicator line so the customer can use it for their input tax deduction.

With an active Tax ID validation service, ZEP checks the Tax ID at the German Federal Central Tax Office or via VIES and records the verification date on the customer. The field verified on shows the last successful verification date and is read-only. A periodic re-check is useful to ensure that the Tax ID is still valid at the time of the invoice.

The GLN (Global Location Number) is a 13-digit identification number for PEPPOL/e-invoicing networks. It controls the routing of machine-readable invoices to the correct receiving node at the customer — mostly used in retail and in public administration.

The currency determines the unit in which invoice items, revenue reports and document amounts are kept. The default is the tenant base currency from Administration > My Company, but it can be overwritten per customer. For foreign currency customers, ZEP automatically applies the stored exchange rate as of the reporting date.

The tax rate is the default for every invoice item to this customer. The default comes from Administration > Customers > Settings; it can be overwritten per customer. With tax = 0 (e.g. EU reverse charge customers), revenue reports appear exclusively as net amounts.

The cash discount rate in percent is the default value for invoices to this customer. It applies when the term of discount is met and reduces the amount due accordingly. The discount acts directly on open items and dunning logic — the customer may pay the reduced amount within the deadline without triggering a reminder.

The term of discount in days defines within which payment deadline the customer may take the cash discount. The default comes from Administration > Customers > Settings. For an invoice with the invoice date on the 1st and a 14-day term, the cash discount applies until the 15th of the same month. After the term expires, the customer must pay the full amount even when paying within the term of payment.

The term of payment in days is the default payment deadline on invoices to this customer. It controls the due date calculation in dunning. The default comes from Administration > Customers > Settings. If the term of payment is exceeded, ZEP forwards the invoice to the dunning stage and calculates default interest from that point on, if configured in the administration.

The IBAN is the international account number for SEPA payments. It is used when the direct debit option is active on the customer, and it is included in machine-readable invoice formats as the recipient bank account. A valid IBAN is a prerequisite for the automated direct debit collection via the SEPA XML generation.

The BIC (Bank Identifier Code) complements the IBAN with the recipient bank. It is optional for SEPA payments within the EU but required for international transfers. ZEP also includes the BIC in machine-readable invoice formats if the customer needs this information for their bank routing logic.