It syncs before it starts. I expect it to redeem the payments after that automatically, but it doesn't. I need to manually navigate to "lightning address" for the payments to show up. 

BallLightning

lightning

Zeus lightning address doesn't check on startup

The Zeus embedded node, in order to function properly it need to be full synced (chain and graph).

All those "pending" incoming payments to your @zeuspay LN address could be redeemed at startup if your Zeus node is already synced.
So if you:
- didn't keep Zeus in persistent mode
- didn't synced very often

it will take some time or fail to redeem the sats from the hold invoices.

If you use very often that zeuspay LN address I suvggest to keep your Zeus app in persistent mode (aka the lnd service stays active and your channels are kept synced).

I personally avoid to use hold invoices as much as I can. It can trigger force close of the channel.