DATEV: Creating Time Entries Despite the Error “Employee Does Not Belong to the Chancellery”

You may experience the following error message in Memtime when creating time entries:

"Employee does not belong to the chancellery"

Short explanation

DATEV does not support purely technical users. Any DATEVconnect user used in EO Comfort must also exist as a regular chancellery employee with the correct permissions and branch assignment.

Process Overview

1. Make the Employee Overview visible in the DATEV Workplace.
2. Grant permissions for the Employee Overview and Employee Management.
3. Enable branch selection for employees; relevant for the "comfort" custom organization model.
4. Create technical users as employees in the Central Master Data.
5. Maintain employee data specific to the "Comfort" custom organization model: qualifications, working hours, and cost rates.
6. Check permissions for in-house organization, order creation, and maintenance.
7. Validation: Employees are visible in order selection; orders can be saved.

Step 1: Display "Employees" overview in DATEV Workplace

If the employee overview is missing in DATEV Workplace, it may be hidden or not visible in your profile.

Show entry

1. In DATEV Workplace navigation, select Our chancellery
2. In the overview, right-click and choose Show/hide entries
3. If the entry Master data overviews, Employees exists, activate the checkbox for Employees
4. If the entry is missing, switch profile:
   In DATEV Workplace menu, go to View → Profiles → Universal or Secretariat

Step 2: Grant Required Permissions

1.  Open User Management in DATEV using the program search.

 

2. In User Management, create the Service User. Only the first and last names need to be entered.

 

 

3. The Service User must be linked to a Windows user. If this user does not exist yet, please create it.

4. The Service User must be assigned to an employee. If this employee does not exist yet, please create it.

 

5. The Service User must be linked to a data center user. If this does not exist yet, please create it.

6. Verify that the employee is assigned to all three key areas:

1. Employee Management
2. Windows PC
3. Data Center

After checking, click Finish.

7. Verification of Rights (Important)

All human icons must be green. A yellow warning triangle indicates an error in the setup.

Restart DATEV Arbeitsplatz afterward.

 

Step 3: Check branch assignment (important for EO Comfort)

If the employee selection window is empty, the branch number range is often not released.

Procedure

1. Open DATEV rights management
2. Navigate to: Global rights → PC applications → Central master data → Company → Branch
3. Check and adjust the released branch number ranges in the lower section if needed

Step 4: Create an employee

The technical user is created as an employee record in the central master data and can later be used as a role holder in organization processes.

Open employee sheet

1. Open DATEV Workplace
2. Go to: Our chancellery → Master data overviews → Employees
3. Open Employees via double click
4. The worksheet opens in the workspace

Create a new employee

1. Click Create employee
2. The master data window opens
3. Assign employee number manually or via “next free number”
4. Enter:
   • First name
   • Last name
     or select an existing contact

Optional: Create DATEV user

If the role “user account administrator” is available and rights management is active, the assistant can be started:

• Create DATEV user
• Link Windows user
• Assign data center user

This depends on the chancellery's setup.

Recommended naming:

 

Step 5: Maintain EO Comfort specific employee data

This setup is required for proper processing in organization workflows, especially time tracking and billing, even if the user is technical.

Procedure

1. Open DATEV user management
2. Create DATEV user (if not already existing) and complete the wizard
3. Go to: Our firm → Master data overviews → Employees
   
   Open employee overview
4. Navigate to: Organization → Additional EO Comfort information → Personal data
5. Please enter the relevant personal information there:

• Qualification: set category 1
• Working time management:
  • Target working time
  • Start date and initial balance (if used)
• Assignments: subject areas and cost centers (if used)

6. Set cost rate

Go to: Additional EO Comfort information → Costs and billing

• Enter cost rate 1 (mandatory)

This is essential for:

• time tracking logic
• internal billing

Optional:

• maintain external billing rates
• assign employee to data environment if used

Step 6: Check permissions for organization and orders

The technical employee must be selectable in orders and orders must be creatable and saveable.

Procedure

In rights management, select user and navigate to:

PC applications → Programs → Organization → Subprograms

Grant rights for:

• Order creation
• Order maintenance

Also ensure employee management and master data permissions are not blocking visibility.

Step 7: Validation

Checkpoints

• Technical employee is visible under:
  Our firm → Employees
• Employee can be selected as:
  • Responsible person
  • Processor
• Time entries can be saved without error:
  "Employee does not belong to the chancellery"

If issues persist

Check:

• Employee overview and employee management rights
• Branch assignment in employee record
• Branch number range approval in global rights
• Data environment assignment (if used)

Best Practices for Technical Users

Recommended:

• Use dedicated integration accounts
• Assign minimal permissions
• Secure with MFA
• Clearly identify technical users, and avoid interactive daily usage of the user, use strictly for integrations
• Technical integration users remain full DATEV users because DATEV does not support separate technical accounts