Zayos and DAVO, the sales tax you never spend

Published July 2026 · Updated July 26, 2026

Quick answer

DAVO sets aside the sales tax from your Zayos direct orders every day, holds it, then files and remits it when the state is due. The money leaves your operating account nightly, so a quarterly bill cannot arrive when the account is empty.

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Why is a tax tool part of an ordering platform?

Because sales tax is the one line on the ticket that was never yours. Your Zayos storefront collects it from the diner at checkout, and from that moment you are holding the state’s money in an account that also pays your produce vendor. It looks like revenue in the bank balance. It reads like revenue on a slow Tuesday. It is not revenue.

Restaurants rarely get in trouble here out of dishonesty. They get in trouble because the money was in the account in March and the bill came in April. Setting it aside the same night removes the temptation and the arithmetic in one move.

What comes off my plate, and what is still mine?

This is the honest split. No software takes your name off the state’s letter.

DAVO handles this

Calculating the sales tax portion of every connected order, every day.
Moving that money out of your operating account nightly into a holding account.
Filing the return in your connected states, on the schedule the state assigned you.
Remitting the held money to the state when it is due.
Keeping the record of every set aside and every filing, so your accountant gets a clean file instead of a shoebox.

Still legally yours

You are the taxpayer of record. The state letter has your name on it, not a vendor’s.
Registering for a sales tax permit in every state and locality where you owe one. That is the state’s own process.
Telling DAVO when you open a location, cross into a new state, or your situation changes.
Knowing what is taxable where you operate. A catering tray, a bottled drink and a gift card are not always treated the same.
Every other tax you owe: income, payroll, tips reporting, tangible property. DAVO is sales tax only.
Any sale that does not flow through a channel connected to DAVO.

What does a month actually look like?

Every night you are open

DAVO calculates the tax collected on your connected orders and debits exactly that amount. It leaves before you can spend it. The most expensive tax mistake in this industry is treating collected sales tax as revenue for eleven weeks.

Every day in between

Nothing. No portal to check, no spreadsheet to keep, no reminder to set. The absence of a task is the product.

Filing day

DAVO files the return for your connected states on the schedule the state assigned you, monthly or quarterly, and remits the money it has been holding all along. You are not writing a check out of this month’s cash for last quarter’s sales.

When your accountant asks

The set aside and filing history is on the record. Hand it over and move on with your day.

How do I connect it?

Four steps, and two of them are yours alone because a vendor cannot sign your tax paperwork for you.

01

Have your state sales tax permit number ready

You need a permit in the state where you operate before anyone can file for you. If you do not have one, that registration is the state’s own process and it comes first. Zayos cannot register you and neither can DAVO.
02

Complete DAVO’s own signup

DAVO is a separate vendor, so you complete its onboarding and agreement directly: business details, your permit number, filing frequency, and the bank account it debits nightly. Like Stripe, this is a step only the account holder can do. You enter those details with DAVO, never with us.
03

Connect it to your Zayos storefront during onboarding

We wire the connection so the tax portion of every direct order, pickup, delivery, dine in and catering, flows to DAVO. There is no work here for you beyond confirming your rates and filing frequency look right.
04

Connect your in store sales separately if you want them covered

Zayos sends DAVO the orders that come through your Zayos storefront. Counter sales rung on your POS are a separate DAVO connection on the POS side. Skip this and you will be covered on half your revenue and think you are covered on all of it.

Where the tax comes from on the payment side is covered in the money flow on the payments side of the stack, and every other connected system is listed on integrations. Onboarding timing sits on how it works: most restaurants are live in under 2 weeks.

Know this before you rely on it

What does DAVO not do?

It does not make you compliant by itself

You are still the taxpayer of record. If a return is wrong because the underlying setup was wrong, the state comes to you first. Software that moves money on a schedule is not a substitute for knowing your own filing obligation.

It does not fix what you already owe

DAVO starts working from the day it is connected. Prior period liability, a past due notice, or a balance already sitting with the state is a conversation with your accountant, not something a new connection resolves.

It does not cover sales it never sees

Only the channels connected to DAVO are set aside. Zayos direct orders are covered once the connection is live. Your in store POS sales need their own DAVO connection, and money taken outside any connected system is not in the picture at all.

It does not decide what is taxable

Taxability rules are state and category specific, and restaurants sit right on the edges of them: prepared food versus grocery, catering service charges, delivery fees, gift cards. Get your categories right with your accountant once, at setup. Automation applies your setup faithfully, including the parts you got wrong.

It is not an income, payroll or tips tool

Sales tax only, and US state sales tax at that. It does nothing for your income tax, your payroll filings, your tip reporting, or a location outside the United States.

Zay Revenue Group builds restaurant software in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We are not your accountant and this page is not tax advice. Take your categories and your filing frequency to the person who signs your returns.

Sales tax questions owners ask

Why would an ordering platform care about my sales tax?

Because the money is collected at checkout and it is not yours. Every direct order on Zayos collects sales tax from the diner, and that amount sits in your operating account looking exactly like revenue until the state asks for it. DAVO moves it out nightly. The restaurants that get hurt by sales tax are not the ones who refuse to pay, they are the ones who spent it in March and got the bill in April.

Does DAVO cost extra on top of my Zayos plan?

The Zayos side of the connection is included at every tier, Operator $499, Operator + Marketplace $599 and Concierge $699 per location per month, with no setup fee. DAVO itself is a separate vendor that bills its own published rate directly to you under its own agreement. Zayos does not set that rate and does not mark it up. The only Zayos per order money is the fee the diner pays at checkout, $0.99 pickup, $2.99 delivery, $0 dine in and 10 percent on catering, which the restaurant never pays. Ask us for DAVO’s current number before you sign rather than after.

Which states does this work in?

It covers US state sales tax, including Florida, where our restaurants operate. Your filing frequency, monthly or quarterly, is whatever the state assigned you when you registered, and DAVO files on that schedule. If you operate in more than one state, each one needs its own permit and its own setup.

What happens to the set aside money if I cancel?

The money DAVO is holding is tax you collected on behalf of the state, so it belongs to the state either way. Cancellation is handled under DAVO’s own agreement, which is one of the reasons the agreement is with you directly rather than through us. Read it. It is short.

Do my DoorDash and Uber Eats orders go through DAVO too?

No. Marketplace orders are collected and remitted under those platforms’ own arrangements as marketplace facilitators, which is a separate track from your direct sales. This is exactly why the split matters: your direct orders through Zayos, your in store POS sales, and your marketplace sales are three different tax paths. Confirm all three with your accountant, not with a vendor.

Is this really necessary if I am a single location doing modest volume?

Ask yourself one question: if the state asked for the last three months of collected sales tax tomorrow, is that money still in the account? If the answer takes more than two seconds, the set aside is worth it. Naya Grill in Pompano Beach and West Palm Beach runs direct ordering on Zayos and keeps $48k+ a year that used to go to commissions, on a commission model run at 3,000 orders a month. Keeping more money makes the tax discipline matter more, not less.

Plan detail is on pricing. If you are still deciding whether direct ordering is worth the change at all, read what Zayos is.

Keep more of it, then keep it safe.

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