The Times and receipts area in the administration bundles the global settings for time and receipt recording as well as reusable content: recording rules, work break regulations, mail templates for time-related events, and (with active add-on module Travel Expense Management) mailboxes for incoming receipts.

In the submenu item Settings you configure all global rules around the recording of times and receipts: backward and forward recording, remark text behaviour, display of gaps, preloading of meals and breaks, minutes grid, formatting of reports, and the project release of times.

The option Backward recording defines how far into the past employees may retroactively record times and receipts. The following options are available:

Additionally, the checkbox Allow bookings for the previous week on Mondays lets employees still catch up on entries for the past week on Mondays, independently of the above days value.

In the field allow further days backward recording for receipts you set a separate days value for the backward recording of receipts that goes beyond the general time-recording limit. Practical when receipts are often submitted late but times should be recorded promptly.

Via the option Allow project time recording in advance you decide whether and how far employees may book into the future. In ZEP Professional and in ZEP Compact with the Revenue & Costs or Travel Expense Management add-on module the label reads Permit forwarded project time and receipt recording and the setting affects times and receipts jointly. The following options are available:

The checkbox Record activities in ZEP Clock activates the recording of activities in addition to plain working time. This way, working hours can be split across different activities, which forms the basis for activity-based reports.

The checkbox Allow double bookings permits the same time period to be recorded multiple times — for example when employees work on two parallel tasks simultaneously. By default, ZEP blocks double bookings to avoid reporting errors.

Practical example: A consultant travels by train to customer A and simultaneously works on a task for customer B during the journey. Both hours should be billable: the travel time on project A and the task time additionally on project B. With active double booking, both entries can be recorded at the same time.

With the main checkbox active, the sub-checkbox Double recording: warning and options Double recording or Overwrite additionally appears, which displays a pop-up with decision options as soon as an overlap is detected.

Three checkboxes control the behaviour of the remark text during time recording. Practical in organisations where remarks are mandatory or recurring notes should be automatically taken over:

Two checkboxes control the visibility and bookability of days that are not part of the regular working week:

The checkbox Project times are durations, without from/to-times switches time recording to pure duration recording (e.g. 4 hours instead of 08:00–12:00). Practical in organisations where concrete times of day play no role. In ZEP Clock the checkbox is called Working times are durations, without from/to-times.

The checkbox Emphasize gaps when recording project time visually highlights missing booking intervals (e.g. 11:00–12:30 not covered) by a larger spacing in the table of time entries. Employees can immediately recognise and close gaps. Practical: when clicking on a gap, ZEP takes over the end time of the previous entry as the from-time and the start time of the next entry as the to-time in the recording field, so the gap can be filled in a few clicks. In ZEP Clock the option is called Emphasize gaps when recording working time.

The option Initialization of from-Time for a new day determines with which time ZEP pre-fills the from-field on the first booking of a day:

The option Minutes grid sets the minimum interval at which times are recorded and shown in reports. Available grids are 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 15, 20, or 30 minutes. We recommend the grids 3, 6, 15, or 30 minutes, because they divide 60 minutes without rounding.

Practical recommendation per product line:

After changing the minutes grid you should check existing bookings, as ZEP converts the display and individual entries can show visible rounding differences.

The option Preloaded meals controls how ZEP pre-fills the meal allowance during travel-expense recording. The following options are available:

In the block Default from-time / to-time for recording work breaks you store the default break time (e.g. 12:00–12:30), which is pre-filled on each new break recording. Employees can override the value individually. The default merely saves time during daily recording.

Two checkboxes control whether ZEP displays time values as a decimal number (e.g. 1.5 h) or in hours:minutes format (e.g. 1:30):

The option Receipt files PDF with receipt data determines whether ZEP should append additional receipt data (date, amount, employee) to the PDF file of a stored receipt. Practical for archiving in accounting, so that the PDF remains comprehensible even without access to ZEP.

The checkbox Amounts of money in the currency of CHF or converted into this, will be always rounded to 0.05 (5 Rappen). Applies to receipts, project sales volume and invoicing. activates the Swiss rounding rule for all CHF amounts. Practical in organisations with Swiss customers or employees in Switzerland.

The checkbox Always show document icon in project time recording always shows the document icon in the form view of time recording, even when no receipt is currently uploaded. Practical as a visual reminder that receipts can be added.

The checkbox Show ticket subject in Project Times Report adds an additional column with the subject of the linked ticket to the project-time report. This way, bookings can be classified by content without switching to the ticketing system.

Two checkboxes extend the filter logic of the project-time report:

The option Cost Accounting, Time Report, Project Sales Volume: activities and types of receipt with short form and legend or designation determines whether the short form with legend or the full designation is shown in the listed reports. With active invoicing the label is extended by and invoice attachment.

The following options are available:

The checkbox If recording a billable time that falls within a period that is subject to surcharge according to the price list: employee is prompted to specify whether this surcharge should actually apply displays a confirmation pop-up when recording a period with surcharge (e.g. night surcharge), so employees consciously decide on the surcharge. This avoids reporting errors through unintended surcharges.

The checkbox Project time recording: show tasks including superordinate tasks shows parent tasks in the task selection so that the project plan hierarchy is visible. Practical in projects with a multi-level task structure.

The checkbox Project release of times activates an additional release stage for recorded times. Project managers use it to release project times before they are invoiced. As long as the setting is active, the regular Account status of a time becomes the Project release: A time is considered released only after a project lead has explicitly set the status to released.

How project leads set the release in the application:

Implications of a granted project release:

The employee release of times (Employees area) remains independent and can be used in parallel or not at all.

The submenu item Work break regulation manages the organisation-wide break rules according to which ZEP automatically deducts breaks from the time balance. A break rule can be assigned per employee (see the default in the General tab of the Employee settings).

Basic principle: ZEP automatically treats unbooked periods between two time entries as a break. If you do not want automatic break logic, do not assign a break regulation to the employees. Recording breaks is then their own responsibility.

A break regulation consists of several components that together determine how ZEP calculates missing or too short breaks for a working-time booking and deducts them from the time balance:

When an account is created, a break regulation Standard is already preset. Its key parameters are set close to legal requirements so that you can start without any configuration. Every company can adapt these defaults to its own collective-agreement or operational rules at any time.

Via the button Create new work break regulation a dialog opens in which you store the following fields. For existing regulations you open the same dialog via Change break regulation and update the values from a new start date:

Under Minimum breaks you store an hours-break combination per threshold. With multiple thresholds the highest reached value applies. Typical configuration per the German Working Hours Act:

Via the button Create new minimum break you add further steps if your organisation follows stricter or additional rules. The fields are from hrs, To hrs and the corresponding Minimum break in hours. The staggering follows the German Working Hours Act (§ 4 ArbZG, break duration by daily working time). If the staggering has gaps, ZEP points this out with a warning.

Under Fixed break you create, via Create new fixed pause, a break with a fixed from and to time (e.g. 12:00–12:30). When a recorded working time overlaps this window, ZEP automatically cuts the break out, except during travel activity. Its observance is always enforced, independent of the checkbox Force compliance. Useful in shift models with a fixed break culture.

The Core working time is a time window in which presence is expected. It does not control the break deduction. Via Create new core working hours you set:

Several core working times per break regulation are possible. Example: a core working time of 9:00 to 16:00 with a maximum permissible work break of 1 hour means that at least 6 hours must be worked within the window.

For part-time staff a separate break regulation with a suitable core time is recommended.

With the active add-on module Travel Expense Management, ZEP treats travel times differently in the break calculation depending on how they are booked:

How much additional working time beyond the maximum working time is permitted during active travel times is set in the field during active travel times additionally up to (see section Create or change a break regulation).

ZEP offers four methods by which missing minimum breaks are calculated and, if set, deducted. The first three calculate on the basis of the sum of working and break times, independent of the actual clock times. For illustration: minimum breaks of 0:30 (from 6:01 hrs) and 0:45 (from 9:01 hrs) and two example days: day A with 9:42 hrs and day B with 9:06 hrs working time, each without a recorded break.

Typical overall configurations that combine minimum breaks, fixed breaks, core working time and calculation methods:

In the submenu item Mail templates you maintain the email templates ZEP sends automatically around time and receipt recording. Per event an individual template with subject and content can be maintained. Available in ZEP Compact and ZEP Professional, not available in ZEP Clock.

Each mail template is bound to an internal ZEP event around project-time recording: As soon as the event occurs, ZEP sends the matching template automatically to the recipients defined for the event. Which templates are available depends on your configuration and the activated add-on modules — typical templates are the project-time details and planned-hours notifications (with the Project planning add-on module, for subtasks and tickets with the Ticketing System add-on module) and similar events from everyday project-time work. You can see the list of concretely available templates in your ZEP under Administration > Times and receipts > Mail templates.

You can edit existing templates and replace them with your own texts. The system templates can neither be deleted nor deactivated, so that the sending workflow is preserved.

In every template you can use placeholders that ZEP replaces with concrete data at runtime. Typical placeholders are the employee name, the date of the event, or the company. In the edit dialog you find a list of the placeholders available per template.

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, the organisation's default language is used. ZEP supports six languages: German, English, French, Spanish, Slovak, and Turkish.

Before activating 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 — important for cyclic reminder emails sent to multiple employees at the same time.

The submenu item Mailboxes sets up central email inboxes to which supplier and customer invoices as well as receipts can be sent. ZEP fetches incoming messages at regular intervals and files them as entries in the receipt mailbox — each with the status Open, Accepted, or Rejected. You assign each open entry to an employee, customer, supplier, or project. Only upon acceptance does it become a receipt that you can process further (invoicing, travel-expense accounting, accounting export).

The setup of a mailbox, the connection and authorisation logic, the assignment of incoming emails to employees, and the workflow from receipt draft to acceptance or rejection are described in detail in the article Belegpostfach.