clockodo vs ZEP

clockodo

Browser, desktop and smartphone apps sit alongside a shared time-recording terminal, times captured offline sync automatically once a connection returns, and employees may file forgotten times themselves rather than queue at an admin desk. We found no public information on GPS or geofenced check-in, on bulk corrections, or on a change history naming who altered what and why — the only evidenced trail is a general Vermerk on a changed entry, which is thin for a works agreement on corrections.

ZEP

Browser, the app in single- and multi-user mode and a separate hardware terminal cover desk, deskless and site crews, with bookings stored locally offline and synced when the connection returns. GPS is off by default, records a position only per stamp event, and the vendor states plainly that it documents where a stamp came from rather than fencing a radius — the honest answer a works council needs. We found no public information on an audit trail for corrections: administrators can edit times, but nothing public says who changed what, when, or whether a change is reversible.

clockodo

The vendor cites the BAG 2022 duty, lets break rules be configured and enforced in company settings, warns employee and employer alike when working times are breached, and annotates every changed entry — the warning reaching the employee too is a point in its favour. But the help text itself states that automatic break deduction books no break period, so on inspection it would not be evident when the employee actually paused. We found no public information on rest-period or daily-maximum checks, on retention tied to the recording duty, or on tamper-evident change history.

ZEP

Individual working-time models, configurable break rules, minute-exact stamps, automatic overtime accounting with capping and travel time captured as project time give the record a lawful shape, and legally compliant settings are advertised. But we found no public information on warnings for the daily maximum or the eleven-hour rest period, on any retention period, or on tamper-evident change history for entries. That gap is exactly what an inspection would ask about.

clockodo

Vacation accounts with remaining leave computed automatically, country-specific public holidays, ten absence types with approval set per type, sickness and child-sickness, mobile requests with supervisor notification and a shared team calendar — the absence half is solid and maps cleanly onto a works agreement. We found no public information on shift rosters, shift templates, substitution or swap workflows, availability or coverage checks; the drag-and-drop planner places absences, not duties.

ZEP

Absence is handled seriously: request, approval and withdrawal with department deputies, sickness with certificates, automatic entitlement that is pro-rated with the arithmetic shown, remaining-leave balances, read-only closed months and calendars shared for deputy arrangements. Planning is capacity scheduling by percentage, hours or time slots with overload warnings and holiday and weekend markers, not a shift roster. We found no public information on per-location public-holiday calendars, qualification or rest-period checks on plans, or swap workflows.

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 recorded times become invoice drafts handed to Lexware Office, sevdesk or easybill without retyping, with reports exported as PDF or CSV. We found no public information on a cost-centre field, a billable flag, or how rates behave when they change mid-project.

ZEP

A booking carries a billable flag, note and work location; clients, projects, tasks and cost centres structure the time; hourly and daily rates come from price groups on the project-employee assignment; and released invoice items are billed automatically as XRechnung or ZUGFeRD 2.1 with a DATEV invoice synchronisation on top. The project view sets planned revenue against times booked. We found no public information on budget warnings at a set limit or on how rates behave when changed mid-project.

clockodo

A maintained DATEV Lohn & Gehalt connection is documented in detail — client and consultant numbers from the tax adviser, personnel-number type, wage-type mapping before export — and absences are stated as ready for preparative payroll, with interfaces to payroll programs and CSV as fallback. The export is restricted to hourly wage earners and excludes employees with surcharges, and we found no public information on a lock step before transmission, retro corrections after the close, or scoped access for the tax adviser.

ZEP

DATEV Lohn & Gehalt and LODAS are named for payroll synchronisation and ZEP time bookings are transferred to Personio, so a named payroll path exists. The documented exports — DATEV, Lexware and a general CSV — are described for expense accounting from an internal-cost perspective, and we found no public information on what the payroll handoff carries for night, Sunday and holiday surcharges, time accounts or mid-month changes, nor on a lock step before transmission; supplements for public holidays and special times exist in the system, but the pages do not show them reaching payroll.

clockodo

The contracting entity is a German GmbH, the product pages state data sits on German servers, a trust centre publishes the processing agreement, technical measures and data-centre information, and processors are named — Mittwald and HubSpot in Germany, PayPal in Luxembourg, Stripe in the USA with the Data Privacy Framework given as basis — while logfiles are bounded at thirty days, a bound I welcome. We found no public information on ownership or data-centre certification, the product is cloud only with no on-premises option evidenced, and registration stores IP addresses for abuse prevention — a watchful detail I note without applause.

ZEP

Hosting and development in Germany, daily encrypted backups across several German data centres, ISO 27001 certification extending to the cloud hosting partners and GDPR conformity are stated on the vendor's own pages, and the contracting entity appears as a GmbH. But the hosting partners are not named anywhere I can see, and we found no public information on a published subprocessor list. Before I co-sign data flows, I need that chain in writing.

clockodo

Every tier carries a public per-user price — Basic 4 €, Pro 8 € for the first twelve months then 10 €, Pro Plus 10 € then 12 €, plus package +2 € per user per month — with monthly or annual billing, cancellation at month's end, no base or setup fee, net prices plus statutory VAT, and a single user free permanently. We found no public price for the time-recording terminal, and the vendor invites firms with at least twenty users to request an individual offer, so a buyer cannot compute the annual invoice for a larger headcount from public pages alone.

ZEP

Starting per-user prices for all three tiers are public with monthly billing stated, onboarding and migration carry no one-off cost, a fourteen-day trial is free and a price calculator is offered. But the add-on modules and terminals are presented as selectable without prices, teams above twenty-five, fifty or one hundred users are directed to individual offers, and we found no public information on VAT treatment or a minimum term. So the real annual invoice cannot be computed from the public pages.