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51 guides in plain language. No account needed — feel free to share the link with your team.
Getting started
(9)From an empty account to the first clock-in at your business.
- An employee leaves: deactivate, leaving date, what remainsDeactivate instead of delete — from the next billing period the seat costs nothing, the times remain auditable, and after three months the person disappears from the names.8 min read
- Employee guide: clock in, report, swap — what you handle yourselfThe one page for employees: clocking in and out, viewing times, reporting absences, swapping shifts — and why you do not change times yourself.6 min read
- Getting Zeitflex on your phoneHow to use Zeitflex on your phone — today via the browser, with a shortcut on the home screen.2 min read
- I can’t get into my account — password, invitation, lockoutCheck in this order: status page, reset password, link validity, wait out the lockout — with the real time limits.5 min read
- Importing data from Excel or another programBring in employees, working hours, vacation and projects from .xlsx or CSV — with a dry run and undo.3 min read
- Inviting employeesAccess via invitation link or terminal PIN, assigning roles correctly, date of birth only when needed — and what to do if someone cannot find the invitation.9 min read
- Setting up your business — the first 10 minutesFrom an empty account to a working business: master data, working-time model, premiums — and what you can safely put off until later.3 min read
- Target hours, working-time model, rounding: the basic settings per personThe five settings that determine every later calculation — and why rounding never works against employees.7 min read
- Your first clock-inClock in, break, clock out — what happens, where it ends up and how to check that it worked.2 min read
Time tracking day to day
(6)Clocking in and out, breaks, corrections, working offline, projects.
- Assigning times to projects or sitesHow to split working time across jobs, sites, wards or cost centres, how to assign times retroactively — and what Zeitflex analyses from it.7 min read
- Clocking in and out by phone, tablet or browserThree routes, one record: when each route is the right one, what each can do, which PIN rules apply at the terminal and what happens without a connection.9 min read
- Correcting a forgotten clock entryHow to add missing or wrong times — with a reason, traceably and without deleting the original record. And who gets reminded after 14 hours.8 min read
- Flexitime and overtime: how the time account is calculatedPlus and minus hours result from actual against target per week — the flexitime account is the same balance with an agreed limit.6 min read
- Recording breaks correctlyHow breaks are recorded in Zeitflex, what the law requires as a minimum and why the statutory break is deducted even if nobody clocks it.2 min read
- Working without a networkWhat works on a building site, on the road or in a dead zone: the queue in the browser, the terminal without a network, and what happens when the server rejects a clock event.8 min read
Shift plan & absences
(8)Planning shifts, approving vacation, sick notes, swaps.
- Announcements: the notice board with proofAn announcement reaches everyone, a role, a project or individual people — and who has read it is recorded as proof if you wish.6 min read
- Copying a weekTransferring an existing weekly plan to another week — including the question of what happens with vacation and public holidays.2 min read
- Planning shiftsWeekly grid, creating a shift, spotting conflicts, publishing the plan — and what reaches employees after publishing.8 min read
- Recording a sick noteHow a sick note works in Zeitflex, how the doctor’s certificate is uploaded securely, who may see it — and how to undo a typo.9 min read
- Requesting and approving vacationThe path from request to approval, how Zeitflex calculates the entitlement, how a request is withdrawn — and where the limits of vacation management lie.9 min read
- Shift swap: handing over and taking on a shiftWhen two people want to swap a shift: the orderly route with confirmation and approval.2 min read
- Team chat: a shout across the yard — no archive, no recordThree commitments: at least three people per group, a retention period instead of an archive, and management never reads along silently.9 min read
- Your shift plan in your own calendar (iPhone, Android, Outlook)Your own shifts and absences as a calendar subscription — up to five access links per person, individually revocable, read-only.7 min read
Month-end close & pay
(9)Closing the month, premiums, export to the tax adviser.
- Changing the hourly wage: from when, with a reason, without distorting old monthsA pay rise applies from the first of a month and needs a reason — closed months are calculated with the rate that applied at the time.4 min read
- Corrections after lockingWhen the error is noticed after the month-end close: the two permitted ways and when each one is right.2 min read
- Inviting your tax adviserGive your tax adviser their own strictly read-only access, set the three rights correctly — and withdraw access again at any time.8 min read
- Month-end close in 10 minutesReview, calculate, lock, export — the complete process with the four places where things get stuck.3 min read
- Recording bonuses and benefits in kind — without tax pitfallsFour types of bonus, and the category — not the tick box — decides whether “tax-free” is permitted at all. What Zeitflex checks, what goes into the payroll export and what you keep an eye on yourself.7 min read
- Reports: overtime, target/actual, labour costs, sickness rateFour analyses over freely selectable periods as CSV and PDF, plus the shift plan analysis Planned vs. worked — on the Pro plan.6 min read
- Setting up the DATEV exportThe details your payroll office has to provide, where they are entered — and why the field mapping should be approved once.3 min read
- Understanding premiumsNight, Sunday, public holiday and custom allowances: which premiums Zeitflex calculates, how they overlap and where the tax-free limits are.5 min read
- Was the job worth it? Post-calculation with budget and contribution marginThe project analysis compares actual hours with the budget and labour costs with the contract value — and states explicitly what is missing from the labour costs.9 min read
Law & obligations
(11)Record-keeping obligation, breaks, mini-job earnings limit, retention.
- § 3b: tax-free premiumsWhich premiums are tax-free and up to what rate, which base pay limits apply and why tax and social security calculate differently.3 min read
- Apprentices under 18: what Zeitflex also checksStricter limits than the Working Hours Act apply to staff under 18 — they are only checked if a date of birth is stored.8 min read
- Break and rest period rulesMaximum working time, minimum break, rest period and Sunday work — the figures from the Working Hours Act and what Zeitflex checks of them.3 min read
- Customs audit: what you present to the FKS (German financial control of undeclared work)Which document the FKS wants to see, where to generate it in Zeitflex and why people who have left still appear in it.5 min read
- GPS when clocking in/out: what is stored, who sees it, when it is goneTwo switches, one snapshot when clocking in and out, six months — and no radius, no tracking. What Zeitflex does with the location and what it explicitly does not do.6 min read
- Record-keeping duty — clearly explainedWho has to record working time, what exactly, since when — and what already applies today from the planned change in the law.3 min read
- Retention periodsHow long working-time data, sick notes and payroll records must be kept, which periods Zeitflex has set for each type of data, and what the nightly deletion run does.12 min read
- The mini-job limit: €603 in 2026How the limit is calculated, why the year counts and not the month, what counts and what does not — and who gets the early warning.10 min read
- What Zeitflex stores about me — the data access reportEvery person obtains their own access report under Art. 15 GDPR themselves — readable and as a file, without going through the business.7 min read
- Working-time check: note, warning, breach — what each finding meansThe Working-time check page reports a note, a warning or a breach — here you can read under which rule and how to resolve it.8 min read
- Works council and co-determinationWhy time tracking requires co-determination under § 87 BetrVG, what belongs in a works agreement, which modules you should agree on beforehand and which data Zeitflex processes.9 min read
Account & billing
(8)Plans, payment, referrals, cancellation and taking your data with you.
- Cancelling your account and taking your data with youWhat to export before cancelling, how to end the subscription, how the two-stage deletion works and which obligations remain with you.10 min read
- Changing your planUpgrading or downgrading, what takes effect immediately, what applies at the end of the term, what you see in the menu afterwards — and what happens to your data.10 min read
- Connecting Zeitflex to other systems: API keys and webhooksAPI keys with read or write rights, five webhook events with a signature — what the interface can do and what it deliberately does not do.6 min read
- Employment contract, records, photos: documents in ZeitflexFour document types, clear visibility, fixed deletion periods — and why the tax adviser sees nothing here.6 min read
- Payment and invoicesPayment methods, billing address, VAT ID, the email before the first charge — and what happens when a payment fails.9 min read
- Plans and pricesWhat Free, Starter and Pro include, how the price per active employee comes about, how monthly and annual payment differ and from when Enterprise applies.9 min read
- Referral programmeHow you get credit for businesses you refer, what the referred business receives and which limits apply.2 min read
- Which messages Zeitflex sends — and how to get peace and quiet at nightFour types of message can be switched off individually, personal quiet hours hold them back — and a fixed night-time quiet period from 21:00 to 6:00 applies to the team chat.7 min read
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