Inviting your tax adviser

Instead of sending files by email every month, your tax adviser can help themselves. Access is included from the Starter plan; on the Free plan, Zeitflex rejects the invitation with a note about the plan.

What the tax adviser sees — and what they do not

Important for understanding this: the portal is not a second timesheet. The figures per person are in the export files of the closed month — and the portal keeps a record of what has changed since the last export (corrected times, decided requests, changed master data, locked months).

The three rights

When you invite, you define what the engagement covers. There are exactly three rights, and each can later be switched on or off individually:

Without the first right, an engagement is pointless — the tax adviser would see that a month is finished but could not get to the file. The third right is deliberately switched off: data minimisation under Art. 5(1)(c) GDPR is a default in Zeitflex, not an option. Only switch it on if the tax adviser actually maintains the master data.

Even with the third right, the master data view remains narrow: no address, no date of birth, no bank details, no absence type. For payroll prep, personnel number, employment type and pay are enough. Every time the tax adviser retrieves the master data, it is recorded in your business’s change log — you can see who looked and when.

Which file formats the tax adviser can download depends on your plan, not on the tax adviser’s: DATEV files are only available if your plan includes the DATEV export and the DATEV settings have been entered.

Step by step

1. Open Settings → Tax adviser.
2. In the Invite tax adviser box, enter the Tax adviser’s email and, optionally, the Name of the firm (optional).
3. Under What may the tax adviser see?, check the three rights.
4. Click Send invitation.

The tax adviser receives an email with a link. If they already have a Zeitflex account, they accept the invitation with it; if not, they first create a tax adviser account. After that they see your business in their client list.

The link is valid for 14 days — just as long as an employee invitation. Below the form is the Open invitations list with the date sent and the expiry date. If the tax adviser already has access to your business, Zeitflex rejects a second invitation (“… already has access to your business.”).

The result: your tax adviser fetches the monthly files themselves — without follow-up questions, without email attachments, without anyone sending a file twice.

The tax adviser invites you

The reverse route also works: if your tax adviser already works with Zeitflex, they send you an engagement request. It appears under Settings → Tax adviser in the Request from a tax adviser box. There you set the three rights and approve — or you decline. The active engagement is only created once you approve.

The same applies if you created your business via a tax adviser’s referral link: in that case, too, there is a request that you have to confirm.

Revoking access

Under Settings → Tax adviser, the engagement has a Revoke access button. Access ends immediately: Zeitflex checks the engagement afresh with every single request from the tax adviser, not just at their next sign-in. When you change tax advisers, this is the first step, not the last.

A revoked engagement remains in the list with its date. If you want to grant the same tax adviser access again later, Grant again is enough — no new invitation is needed, and the rights stay as they were last set.

What the tax adviser never sees

Regardless of any right granted, there is a hard exclusion list. It applies to every engagement, and it cannot be unlocked:

• Certificates of incapacity for work and every other uploaded file — contracts, photo documentation, other documents. For payroll prep, the tax adviser needs the number of sick days, not the certificate. This is not caution but necessity under Art. 5(1)(c) GDPR; a medical certificate is health data under Art. 9 GDPR.
• GPS locations of clock-ins/outs.
• PIN codes of terminal users.
• Diagnoses of illness — they do not belong anywhere in Zeitflex anyway.

On top of that, there are two areas where tax adviser access simply does not exist:

• Team chat: the tax adviser can never be a member of a chat group — not even if management tries to add them by mistake. Zeitflex rejects this.
• Documents: the document storage returns nothing at all to a tax adviser account — no list, no search, not even file names.

And because the portal is read-only, the tax adviser also cannot cancel an absence, decide a request or enter a sick note. The only actions they can trigger: create an invitation to a business and withdraw their own invitation that is still open, send a reminder, maintain their own firm details and download an export file. None of these changes a record in your business.

What the tax adviser also gets

If your tax adviser looks after several businesses using Zeitflex, their portal gives them:

• a client list with traffic lights — who has closed, who has not
• a bulk download of all monthly files as a ZIP, one folder per business, plus an overview file stating who is missing and why
• a reminder function for missing month-end closes

The reminder is sent by email and push notification to the business’s owners, optionally with a short message from the tax adviser. It is recorded in your business’s change log — you can see from it who reminded you and when. This saves the tax adviser chasing you by phone and saves you asking whether the file has arrived.

Frequently asked questions

My tax adviser also wants the medical certificates, “for the file”. How do I unlock that?

You cannot — Zeitflex does not allow this, on any plan and with any right. For payroll prep, the number of sick days is enough, and the tax adviser sees that in the monthly totals. If your tax adviser wants to keep medical certificates in their own personnel file, that is a route outside Zeitflex that you should clarify with your data protection officer.

I have changed tax advisers. Is it enough to invite the new one?

No. First revoke the old tax adviser’s engagement, then invite the new one. Two active engagements side by side are technically possible — for example during a handover — but both tax advisers then see the same data. Revocation takes effect immediately, without a notice period.

The tax adviser says they cannot see a DATEV file, only CSV and PDF. Why is that?

Because of your plan or your settings. The DATEV file is only available if your plan includes the DATEV export and the DATEV settings have been entered under Settings. The tax adviser’s plan plays no role. How to set this up is described in Setting up the DATEV export.

Can my shift manager invite the tax adviser while I am on vacation?

No. Inviting, changing rights, revoking and reactivating are reserved for the owner. Management can see the engagements and open items but cannot edit them. With a request from the tax adviser, the process waits until you are back — it does not go through on its own. Just one thing: a request from the tax adviser also expires after 14 days; the tax adviser then simply sends it again.

Still stuck?

Which file the tax adviser needs exactly is explained in Setting up the DATEV export; how to close the month cleanly beforehand is in Month-end close in 10 minutes. If an invitation does not arrive, write to Support.