ZEP

The Skeptic

Browser, two app lines and a hardware terminal are all named, and both apps document offline capture that syncs automatically; GPS per stamp event is documented with the explicit note that it does not restrict stamping to a fixed radius — the vendor saying what the feature does not do. What I miss is the correction side: the help pages show an administrator mode that edits employee times, and I found no public information on a correction workflow with approval, bulk correction, or an audit trail of who changed what. 1 5 6

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The Skeptic

The homepage says times are tracked 'rechtssicher' and ZEP Clock lists 'Gesetzeskonforme Einstellungen', while the help pages actually specify configurable break rules, individual working-time models and per-employee reports. I found no public information on daily maximum-hour warnings, rest-period checks, a stated retention period, or a tamper-evident change history — and 'gesetzeskonform' without the named rule behind it is a label, not a feature. 1 3 7 8

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The Skeptic

Vacation is genuinely handled: pro-rata entitlement with a worked calculation example, employment periods with their own quotas, sickness and other absence categories, an approval workflow with statuses and notifications, and shareable calendars. The planning side is percentage-based resource scheduling with overload warnings and cleanup of scheduling on absence days — I found no public information on shift templates, qualification or rest-period checks, per-location holiday calendars, or swap workflows, so this reads as capacity planning, not duty rostering. One blemish: after a contract change, entitlements are recalculated manually rather than automatically. 8 9 10

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The Skeptic

This is the vendor's home ground: projects and tasks carry a billable flag, price groups hold rates per project and employee assignment, planned revenue is computed from scheduled hours, and released invoice items are billed automatically into XRechnung and ZUGFeRD documents with maintained DATEV and Lexware exports. Cost centres come from project or employee master data, documented for the expense handoff. I found no public information on budget warnings beyond planned-versus-actual totals, role-based rate cards, or client-facing reports, which keeps the record short of the top. 5 10 11 12 14

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The Skeptic

The interfaces page names DATEV Lohn & Gehalt and LODAS, Personio receives ZEP time bookings, and the absence module promises workflows through to payroll — payroll is named, in other words. But the documented export covers travel expenses from an internal-cost perspective into financial accounting, not wage types, and I found no public information on how night, Sunday or holiday surcharges, time accounts or mid-month changes reach the payroll format. A named payroll interface with an undocumented payload is exactly the promise a buyer must test in a trial, not on a page. 1 7 8 13 14

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The Skeptic

The vendor states hosting and development in Germany, daily backups in multiple German data centres, and ISO 27001 covering ZEP and its cloud hosting partners. Who those partners are is the open question: I found no public information on a named data-centre provider, a published subprocessor list, or the contracting entity's jurisdiction beyond a German copyright footer naming ZEP GmbH. Germany by self-attestation is real but unverified, which sits mid-table for me. 1 2 4 12

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The Skeptic

All three tiers carry public per-user prices — 'Ab 2€ pro User', 'Ab 7€ pro User', 'Ab 18€ pro User' — with monthly billing and monthly contract adjustments stated. The captured pages name the add-on modules and the hardware terminal that the capture story depends on as purchasable but show no price for either, and teams above 25, 50 or 100 users move to individual offers. A price calculator is mentioned; I found no public information on whether it includes terminal hardware, setup, VAT treatment or renewal terms. 1 2 3

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