The administration box Employees bundles the global settings for employee management as well as the maintenance of reusable content: settings across three tabs (General, Default values for new employees, Attendance), mail templates, categories, and additional attributes. When freelancers are activated in the settings, the submenu item Text modules additionally appears for freelancer credit notes.

On the General tab you set overarching behavioural rules for employee management: activation of attendance tracking and freelance employees, display and sorting options, person-day configuration, notifications before end of employment, employee release of time tracking, signature block, and birthday widget.

The checkbox Record attendances in addition to project times activates the attendance feature (check-in and check-out) organisation-wide. As long as the checkbox is active, employees see the Attendance time tab in their personal area and record their working time via check-in and check-out actions, whether through the web, the ZEP Clock App, or a ZEP Terminal.

The checkbox Activate freelancers and credits enables the concept of freelance employees with credit-note invoicing. When the checkbox is active, the employment type Freelancer with credit note appears in the employee master data, and the submenu item Text modules becomes visible in the administration box Employees, as the basis for creating credit notes.

With the main checkbox active, the following sub-checkbox additionally appears:

The option Employee sorting in selection lists determines the order in which employees appear in drop-downs, filters, and reports. The setting applies globally to all selection lists in ZEP and is available in all three product lines.

The following sort orders are available:

The option Employee-format in customer-reports determines the name format in reports shared with customers (typically in Excel, PDF, or CSV exports). Via the selectbox you set the format in which employees appear towards customers.

The option Employee-format in internal reports determines the name format in reports used internally only, for example in the project-time / working-time report, in attendance overviews, or in invoicing. The option is available in all three product lines and does not affect customer views.

In the field Number of hours per full-time working day for regular working hours reports you store the hours value used to convert working days into hours in the regular-working-time report. Default is 8 hours. The value is used exclusively for the regular working hours report and the capacity calculation.

In the field Total: person-days (PD) correspond to you store the hours value with which ZEP calculates the person-day total in the time reports. The default is the average of the preset regular working hours. 8 hours only apply as a fallback. The setting allows reports to display person-days instead of hours, useful for effort comparisons and capacity planning.

In the field Show person-days with up to … significant decimal places you set the number of decimal places for person-day display. Default is 2 decimal places. The valid range is between 0 and 10. All reports displaying person-days are affected.

The checkbox group Notify before the expiry of a period of employment defines which recipient roles are informed by email before an employee's stored contract end. With at least one activated recipient role, ZEP automatically sends a reminder with the configured lead time. Available in all three product lines.

The following configuration options are available:

The employee release checkbox activates the self-release: every employee specifies up to which date their project times or working hours (depending on the license, additionally receipts and absences) are completely recorded and thus released. Without a release, the times count as unfinished and remain editable by the employee. From the release date onwards they are locked from the employee's view. Available in all three product lines.

Typical use case: at the end of the month an employee clicks Released up to and including 30 Jun 2026. The period up to the end of the month is then locked for them. The department managers or controlling team knows that this period is complete from the employee's perspective.

With the release checkbox active, the following additional fields appear:

The checkbox Notify employee if locked or unlocked for a month sends an email to the affected employee themselves as soon as ZEP locks their access for an entire month or releases a previously set lock. This way, the employee knows they currently cannot edit certain months or may edit them again.

The checkbox Default setting for Time Report Detail and for Time Report of employee: with signature block in print version enables a signature area by default on the print PDFs of the listed reports. The default applies to newly created employees. In every individual print dialog users can still change the option.

The checkbox Default setting for Cost Accounting: with signature block in print version enables a signature area by default on the print version of the cost accounting. Cost accounting is a separate report that is available for all employees (not only for freelance employees) once the cost accounting is available by license (ZEP Professional or ZEP Compact with the Revenue & Costs or Travel Expense Management module).

The checkbox User without additional authorizations can manage the shares of his own calendars himself allows ordinary users to maintain their own calendar shares for colleagues themselves, without administrator intervention. Practical in organisations where employees decide on their own who may see their calendar.

The checkbox Show current employee birthdays widget activates a dashboard widget with the upcoming birthdays of your employees, so that no one is overlooked in daily business. The widget displays birthdays of the coming days clearly grouped. Available in all three product lines.

On the Defaults for new employees tab you set the default values that ZEP pre-fills when creating new employees: weekly working hours, holiday entitlement, holidays and absences default, offset overtime, and break rules. These values are proposals: per employee they can be overridden in the master-data dialog.

In the block Default working days and regular working hours for new employees (Hours/day) you define per weekday the default hours value and whether the day is activated as a working day. Per day the following fields are available:

These values are proposed as the regular working time when creating new employees and form the basis of the regular-working-time report as well as the target-hours calculation in the time report.

In the field Default holiday entitlement per year for new employees you store the annual standard holiday entitlement in days that is pre-filled when creating new employees. Default is 0. Per employee an individual adjustment is possible. The default merely serves as the proposed value.

The option Default for holidays and absences determines how an absence day (holiday, sickness, leave) is valued in terms of hours. The following options are available:

In permanent-employment models with inclusive overtime in the salary, the field Overtime compensated with salary per month defines the hours value that is automatically deducted per month from the overtime balance because it is already covered by the salary. Typical values are 10, 20, or 40 hours per month, depending on the employment contract.

Additionally, the selection field Calculation type determines how the compensated overtime is calculated:

Both fields are the default for newly created employees and can be overridden per employee in the master-data dialog, important because organisations often apply different inclusive arrangements per employment.

The option Default work break regulations for new employees sets the default break rule pre-filled when creating new employees. The break rule controls how many minutes of break ZEP automatically deducts per working day and from which working duration the breaks apply. Per employee a different break-rule type can be assigned individually.

On the Attendance time tab you configure the behaviour of attendance tracking: visibility of the attendance overview, enforcement of the ZEP Clock App, check-in/check-out display in time tracking, recipients of the notification email on check-in/check-out errors, and GPS location transmission.

The checkbox Current attendances from additional rights restricts the view of the attendance overview: without the additional right, employees do not see the attendances of colleagues. By default, every employee can see the attendances of the whole organisation. Activate the checkbox to restrict this visibility to users with additional rights.

The checkbox Current attendances within own department and sub-departments restricts the attendance view further to the own department. With this option active, users see exclusively the attendances of their own department and all subordinate departments.

The checkbox Deactivate manual time recording enforces time tracking exclusively via the ZEP Clock App. Manual time entries in the web frontend are blocked, so that only times captured via the Clock App land in ZEP, useful for organisations that want to enforce a unified recording path through the app.

The checkbox Offer own check-in/check-out report shows check-in and check-out actions in the employee's personal area so that employees can sign in and out there. The option does not appear when project time is exclusively captured by duration, as check-in/check-out requires point-in-time tracking.

The checkbox Show clock-ins during project time / working time recording for informational purposes shows employees their current attendance (check-in time, remaining breaks) in the tracking dialog as a hint, so that maintenance is consistent with the actual attendance. Like the check-in/check-out report, this option requires point-in-time project-time tracking.

The checkbox group Recipients of the notification email when an error occurs during clock-in/clock-out defines who receives an automatic email as soon as an employee triggers an error during check-in or check-out (e.g. double check-in, missing check-out). The following recipient options are available:

The checkbox Location transmission (default) in the Clock App group activates GPS location transmission on check-in and check-out in the ZEP Clock App as an organisation-wide default. The setting can be overridden per employee in the master-data dialog.

In the submenu item Text modules you define reusable text blocks for credit-note invoices of freelance employees, typically as header, footer, payment terms, or legal note. The modules are available when creating a freelancer credit note and save repeated typing.

Via the button New text module a dialog with the following fields opens:

After saving, the module is available as a selectable template when creating a freelancer credit note. ZEP automatically picks the language version that matches the configured language of the freelance employee.

A text module can be deleted via the delete icon. If there are still credit notes linked to this module, first remove these assignments there or archive the affected credit notes before deleting the module, so that the data consistency of your billing history is preserved.

In the submenu item Mail templates you maintain the email templates ZEP sends automatically around employees: for password resets, end-of-employment notifications, missing-time-entry reminders as well as lock and release events. Per event an individual template with subject and content can be maintained. Available in all three product lines.

Each template is bound to an internal ZEP event (password reset, notification before end of employment, reminder for missing time entries, with the Absences & Overtime module additionally locked/unlocked, with active employee release also released and release reminder). As soon as the respective event occurs, ZEP sends the matching template automatically to the recipients defined for the event. You can edit the templates or replace them with your own texts. However, the system templates cannot be deleted, so that the sending workflow is preserved. The admin action that triggers the Reset password template is described in the article Creating, editing and deleting employees.

In every template you can use placeholders that ZEP replaces with concrete data at runtime. Typical placeholders are the employee's name, the date of the event, the company, or the contract-end date. In the edit dialog you find a list of the placeholders available per template, so that the correct notation is always at hand.

Per template you store Subject and Content in the supported languages. ZEP sends the template automatically in the language of the recipient. If no translation is stored, German is used. ZEP supports six languages: German, English, French, Spanish, Slovak, and Turkish.

Before going live with a template you can trigger a test send to your own email address to check the layout and placeholder resolution. This way, errors in the template surface before they reach the real recipients.

In the submenu item Categories you define employee categories for free classification of your employees, typical for reporting groups such as Permanent, Working student, Freelancer, or organisation-specific classifications. Per employee, multiple categories can be assigned. The categorisation serves as a search and selection criterion in reports. Available in all three product lines.

Via the button Create New Category a dialog with the following fields opens:

The label is maintained multilingually. Depending on the language of the user or the report language, ZEP automatically picks the matching translation.

An employee category can be deleted at any time. If employees are still assigned, ZEP warns in the confirmation dialog (This category is allocated!). If employees are still assigned, first reassign them to a different category or remove the assignment in the employee's edit dialog, so that the data consistency of your reports is preserved and no stale references arise.

In the submenu item Additional attributes you define individual fields for employees. An employee additional attribute is an extra input field that appears on the data page of every employee and can be maintained there via the input form, suitable for classifications that ZEP does not provide by default (e.g. Office day, Hardware equipment, Emergency contact, Certifications). Available in all three product lines.

Via the button Add attribute a dialog with the following fields opens:

When creating an additional attribute, you choose from the following data types:

After saving, the attribute appears as an additional entry in the master data of every employee. There you enter the value per employee. In employee reports the attribute is available as an additional filter and additional column. Existing attributes can be edited or, provided no values have been captured yet, deleted again. Once values are captured, deletion is blocked to protect data consistency.