DAVO debuted DAVO Sales Tax at FinovateFall 2015 in New York. The system works on retailers’ behalf by daily impounding sales tax from the merchant’s point-of-sale system. The Maine-based company then automatically files and pays their monthly taxes. This helps retailers whose struggles with cash management often mean trouble in paying sales taxes owed to the state government at the end of the month.

Company facts:

• Founded 2011
• Launched with First Data as channel partner in February 2015
• $2.2 million in funding
• 6 employees
• 231 merchants on platform

To get started, merchants download DAVO from their point-of-sale provider’s app store. Here’s DAVO in Clover’s app market:

The application process is simple. Since 95% of the fields are prefilled from data sourced from the merchant’s point-of-sale records, the merchant needs only to enter their banking information.

DAVO uses the merchant’s API code to track daily sales and sales tax. The company uses ACH rails to daily impound the sales tax due. This removes the temptation for the merchant to use their sales tax revenue for operating expenses. DAVO also helps merchants who owe back taxes by establishing a back-payment plan.

Using the impounded funds and information from the POS, DAVO files and pays the retailer’s tax return on a monthly basis and supplies the records needed for them to file their annual report.

The merchant portal offers insight into daily sales, sales tax, and item-return data. To complement this dashboard, DAVO sends an email summarizing the total amount of sales tax to be debited from the retailer’s account.

The company also offers DAVO FranchisePay, a service that automatically collects and remits royalties and advertising fees from franchisees.

What’s next

DAVO’s ultimate goal is to shift its business model, offering the sales-tax solution for free to small merchants, and charging state governments instead to white-label the platform.

DAVO is a graduate of the Six Thirty fintech accelerator. The company’s CEO Owen Brown, COO Terry Sutton, and Chairman David Joseph debuted DAVO Sales Tax at FinovateFall 2015: