clockodo vs ZEP

clockodo

Browser, desktop and Android/iOS apps plus a shared time-recording terminal give several paths for forty people to clock in, and the mobile apps store entries offline and synchronise automatically once a connection returns. Retroactive entries, a split function for missed breaks and a change annotation on every edited entry cover honest mistakes; we found no public information on geofenced or GPS check-in, and none on bulk correction of entries.

ZEP

Browser, two app lines and a hardware terminal — plus a tablet multi-user mode that simulates a terminal — cover desk and site crews, with offline times and receipts stored locally and synced automatically, and GPS per stamp where the vendor itself states stamping is not restricted to a fixed radius. Admin-mode editing and the option to disable manual entry give control, but I found no public information on bulk corrections with an audit trail of who changed what.

clockodo

The vendor cites the BAG 2022 duty, records start, duration and end, offers configurable break rules that can be enforced, warns when working times are breached, annotates changes and locks timesheets behind digital signatures. The vendor itself states the automatic break deduction books no break period, so on an inspection it would not be evident when a break happened unless the employee records it; we found no public information on daily maximum or eleven-hour rest checks, or on an export shaped for an inspection.

ZEP

Configurable break rules and individual working-time models per employee, an automatic overtime account with capping and holiday time supplements, and 'gesetzeskonforme Einstellungen' in the Clock tier give me the compliance floor. I found no public information on 8/10-hour maximum or 11-hour rest-period checks, a retention period, tamper-evident change history, or an export built for an inspection — thin for the German recording duty.

clockodo

Absence is genuinely handled: automatic vacation accounts with carry-over and holidays, sickness and child sickness among ten absence types, approval configurable per absence type, a team calendar and country-specific public holidays. Shift planning is the other half of this criterion and we found no public information on rosters, shift templates, availability or swap workflows.

ZEP

Vacation entitlement is automatic and prorated with a documented worked example, sickness with certificates is recorded, department managers approve with email notification, weekends and public holidays are blocked, and the planning matrix shows overload warnings with cleanup of scheduling on absence days. I found no public information on shift templates, qualification checks, substitution or swap workflows, or carry-over handling, so the rostering half of planning is not shown for this consultancy-focused product.

clockodo

Entries carry customer, project, subproject, service, employee, description and hourly rate at capture, budgets in hours and money trigger warnings before a project slides into loss, and the billing workflow pushes filtered project times with automatic rates into named invoicing tools — Lexware Office, sevdesk, easybill — where the invoice draft is created. Timesheets with digital signatures give an approval step before billing; we found no public information on a billable flag, cost centres, or how a rate change mid-project is handled.

ZEP

This is the closest to my shop's engine I have judged: billable flag per booking, hourly and daily rates via price groups on the project-employee assignment, cost centres from project or employee, invoice items released before automated billing, and DATEV, Lexware, XRechnung and ZUGFeRD 2.1 handoffs. The project view tracks plan, open and actual figures, but I found no public information on budget overrun warnings, rate rules surviving a mid-project change, or client-facing reports.

clockodo

A documented connection to DATEV Lohn und Gehalt exists, with client and consultant numbers sourced from the tax adviser, wage types assigned in configuration and absences ready for preparative payroll. But the vendor states the export is available exclusively for hourly wage earners and that surcharges, and employees who have entered surcharges, are excluded from it; we found no public information on a lock step before transmission or on retro corrections after the close.

ZEP

DATEV Lohn & Gehalt and LODAS are named for payroll synchronisation, time bookings transfer to Personio, closed months are read-only, and DATEV finalisation is irreversible once exported. The detailed export documentation is scoped to travel-cost accounting from an internal-cost perspective, and I found no public information on night, Sunday or holiday surcharge export, mid-month changes, or retro corrections after the close.

clockodo

Clockodo GmbH is a German entity registered at Amtsgericht Hamm, the system is stated to store data on German servers, and the privacy policy publishes its subprocessors — Mittwald and HubSpot in Germany, PayPal in Luxembourg, Stripe in the USA — with the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and standard contractual clauses named as transfer mechanisms. A trust centre covers processing agreements, technical measures and data centres; we found no public information on ownership structure or an on-premises option, and the operator of the application's own data centre is not separately named.

ZEP

The vendor's own pages state hosting and development in Germany with daily backups in multiple German data centres and ISO 27001 certification covering the cloud hosting partners. I found no public information naming those hosting partners or publishing a subprocessor list, and the independently sourced sovereignty data leaves contracting entity and data residency unconfirmed — vendor-stated German, not evidenced sovereign.

clockodo

The pricing page gives per-user net prices for three tiers — Basic at 4 €, Pro at 10 € with 8 € for the first twelve months, Pro Plus at 12 € with 10 € for the first twelve months — plus a Plus package at +2 € per user per month, with monthly or annual billing, cancellation to any month-end and VAT treatment stated, so most of an annual invoice is computable. The time-recording terminal and the DATEV payroll add-on carry no public price, and from twenty users the vendor invites an individual offer — so for a forty-person firm like mine the real annual cost ends in a conversation.

ZEP

All three tiers carry public per-user prices with monthly billing — 'Ab 2€ pro User', 'Ab 7€ pro User', 'Ab 18€ pro User' — plus a public price calculator, no onboarding costs, and published discount terms. I found no public prices for the add-on modules or the terminals and no statement of VAT treatment or minimum term, and from 25 to 100 users upward the pricing moves to an individual offer, so I cannot compute my annual invoice for forty people from the public pages alone.