whats-best.ai

Time Tracking & Attendance

ZEP

EU-Made Report an error

Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: not determined

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by provantis IT Solutions GmbH · www.zep.de

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Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The Agency Owner

Weighted verdict

Bills forty people's hours to clients and lives on the gap between recorded and billable. Wants project structure, rate cards that survive a mid-project change, budget warnings before the overrun, and an export the invoicing system takes. Attendance compliance is the floor, not the product.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The Agency Owner

Capture in the real workplace

How this is scored

How time actually gets recorded across the workforces a buyer has — desk staff, field and site crews, shift and deskless workers — and what happens when the network is not there.

0 — One browser timer and nothing else; anyone away from a desk records nothing.

3 — Web plus a mobile app, but no offline capture, no shared terminal, and corrections are an admin task rather than a workflow.

5 — Web, mobile and at least one shared capture point (kiosk, terminal or badge), with offline capture that syncs, and a correction workflow with approval.

8 — Several capture paths including hardware terminals or badge readers, reliable offline handling, GPS or geofenced check-in where the vendor states its limits, and bulk correction with an audit trail of who changed what.

10 — Capture fits the workforce rather than the reverse: desk, deskless, field and shift models all first-class, offline as a designed state rather than a failure mode, and every correction attributable, reasoned and reversible.

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The Agency Owner

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. 1 5 6

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Working-time law & audit record

How this is scored

Whether the record satisfies the German recording duty (BAG 2022, § 3 ArbSchG) and the ArbZG rules around it — breaks, maximum hours, rest periods, retention — and whether it survives being inspected.

0 — Hours are summed and nothing else; no break handling, no limits, no retention statement.

3 — Break deduction exists but is a flat rule; no daily maximum or rest-period checks, and no stated retention period.

5 — Configurable break rules, warnings on the 8/10-hour daily maximum and the 11-hour rest period, and per-employee reports covering the recording duty.

8 — The ArbZG rules are modelled rather than approximated: break and rest enforcement with documented exceptions, overtime and time-account rules, the two-year retention handled by the system, and an export built for an inspection.

10 — The vendor treats the record as evidence: tamper-evident entries with full change history, retention and deletion executed per statute, documented handling of on-call, standby and travel time, and published guidance mapping features to the ArbZG sections they serve.

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The Agency Owner

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. 3 7 8

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Absence & shift planning

How this is scored

Vacation, sickness and the shift or duty roster — the half of attendance that decides whether the time data means anything.

0 — No absence handling; vacation lives in a separate calendar or spreadsheet.

3 — Vacation requests with approval, but entitlement is manual, carry-over is not handled and there is no rostering.

5 — Automatic entitlement and carry-over, sickness recording, an absence calendar, and basic shift planning with availability.

8 — Public-holiday calendars per location, pro-rata entitlement, substitution and swap workflows, shift templates with qualification and rest-period checks, and coverage warnings before publication.

10 — Planning and recording are one system: rosters that respect statutory rest and the works agreement, absence that reflows the plan automatically, and forecast-versus-actual reporting a team lead can act on.

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The Agency Owner

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. 8 9 10

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Project, cost-centre & billing

How this is scored

Whether recorded time can carry the allocation an agency, workshop or professional-services firm needs — project, task, cost centre, billable status — through to an invoice or a client report.

0 — Attendance only; no project, task or cost-centre dimension at all.

3 — A free-text note or a single project field, with no rates, no billable flag and no per-project reporting.

5 — Projects and tasks with a billable flag and per-project reports, plus a rate per person or per project.

8 — Multi-level structure (client, project, task, cost centre), rate cards by person, role and project, budget tracking with warnings, and an invoice-ready export.

10 — Time becomes revenue without re-entry: approval before billing, rate rules that survive a rate change mid-project, client-facing reports, and a maintained handoff into named accounting or invoicing systems.

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The Agency Owner

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. 3 5 10 11 12 14

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Payroll handoff

How this is scored

How the recorded month reaches payroll — DATEV, Lohn und Gehalt, an in-house system or the tax adviser — and how much of it is automated rather than retyped.

0 — No payroll path stated; the month leaves as a spreadsheet someone retypes.

3 — Generic CSV said to be usable for payroll, with no named system, no defined format and no handling of surcharges.

5 — A named payroll integration or a documented export format for at least one major system, covering hours, absences and overtime.

8 — Vendor-maintained integration with a named provider, covering night, Sunday and holiday surcharges, time accounts and mid-month changes, with a lock step before transmission.

10 — Payroll is designed for, not exported to: several named systems maintained, an auditable approval and lock, retro handling for corrections after the close, and the tax adviser given their own scoped access.

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The Agency Owner

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. 1 7 9 13 14

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European sovereignty

How this is scored

Where the data lives, who the contracting entity is, who the subprocessors are, and whether that is documented rather than assumed. Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline; scored here as this buyer weighs it.

0 — Non-EU vendor and contracting entity, hosting region unstated or non-EU, subprocessors not named.

3 — EU hosting offered as an option, but the contracting entity is non-EU or the subprocessor list is absent.

5 — EU hosting as standard and an EU contracting entity, but the subprocessor chain includes non-EU providers without an explained safeguard.

8 — EU or DACH hosting with a named data-centre provider, EU contracting entity, full subprocessor list published, and any non-EU processing named with its legal basis.

10 — Sovereign end to end and evidenced: vendor, entity, hosting and every subprocessor in the EU, data-centre certification published, and an on-premises or private-cloud option for buyers who need it.

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The Agency Owner

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. 1 4 7

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Pricing transparency

How this is scored

Whether a buyer can compute the real annual invoice for their headcount — including terminals, modules and minimums — from public pages alone.

0 — No public prices at all; every tier is a sales conversation.

3 — A per-user headline exists, but hardware, modules or a minimum seat count are unpriced or unmentioned.

5 — Per-user prices public for the main tiers with the billing period stated, but at least one commonly needed piece (terminal hardware, planning module, payroll export) sits in an unpriced bundle.

8 — Every tier and module priced publicly with per-user maths, billing period, minimum term and VAT treatment stated; only genuinely custom work lacks a number.

10 — Complete price computability: a calculator or table producing the annual invoice for a given headcount and module selection, including hardware, setup and renewal terms.

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The Agency Owner

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. 1 2 3

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European sovereignty — proven facts

0 of 4 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Ownership Not determined — uncited Report an error
Data residency Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error
Subprocessors Not determined — uncited Report an error

Where this could be wrong

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

Sources (14)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

  1. 1 Vendor homepage www.zep.de Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Pricing www.zep.de Checked 5 Oct 2026 +1 earlier capture: 30 Aug 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Features www.zep.de Checked 5 Oct 2026 +1 earlier capture: 30 Aug 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Security / trust page www.zep.de Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  5. 5 Capture in the real workplace — found from sitemap support.zep.de Checked 5 Oct 2026 +1 earlier capture: 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  6. 6 Capture in the real workplace — found from sitemap support.zep.de Checked 5 Oct 2026 +1 earlier capture: 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  7. 7 Working-time law & audit record — found from sitemap www.zep.de Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  8. 8 Working-time law & audit record — found from sitemap support.zep.de Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  9. 9 Absence & shift planning — found from sitemap support.zep.de Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  10. 10 Absence & shift planning — found from sitemap support.zep.de Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  11. 11 Project, cost-centre & billing — found from sitemap support.zep.de Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  12. 12 Project, cost-centre & billing — found from sitemap www.zep.de Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  13. 13 Payroll handoff — found from sitemap support.zep.de Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  14. 14 Payroll handoff — found from sitemap support.zep.de Checked 5 Oct 2026 +1 earlier capture: 1 Oct 2026 Details →