Avalara, a developer of cloud-based tax compliance software for enterprises, has received the honor of 2016 INTERNET TELEPHONY Product of the Year Award winner from TMC (News - Alert) and its INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine.

Avalara builds its tax compliance software, AvaTax for Communications, for communications service providers – those companies that offer traditional wired communications, voice-over-IP, Internet, and television services to business and consumer clients. Such service providers may have global outfits and therefore could be burdened by millions of accounts that must handle taxes of varying amounts for their service options.

AvaTax connects directly to service providers’ billing and enterprise resource planning systems to process taxes in real time. It can quickly calculate the taxes and fees associated with each account based on their locations and the services within them. This automation means to make tax calculation easy and give telecommunications companies the chance to focus on providing high-quality services to all their clients.

Its performance in the market has given TMC CEO Rich Tehrani (News - Alert) cause to call it “among the best communications and technology solutions available on the market” and to note that Avalara has shown both excellence and innovation in its market. Of course, Staci Greco, the general manager of communications at Avalara, commented that her company was delighted to receive the award. She noted that her company will continue to innovate and try to stay ahead of the industry with new ideas and streamlined service.

One may say that Avalara works primarily in the tax compliance industry. Another may also say that it operates more for telecoms. And another may say that cloud-based software is its home base. Although it clearly reaches into all three sections (and perhaps others), its existence as a software developer places its squarely in the global cloud computing market, which Forrester (News - Alert) expects will reach $241 billion by 2020, up from $40.7 billion in 2011.

Businesses of all types and sizes, including small and large telecoms, are moving to the cloud in search of more efficient operations and cleaner access to applications from any location on any device. Avalara is doing its own part to aid in that search. It has impressed the judges and leaders at TMC for its performance in the real world, so analysts should not be surprised if telecoms continue to seek AvaTax in the mission for easier tax management.