What does a transaction processing system primarily accomplish?

A transaction processing system (TPS) is specifically designed to handle a large volume of routine, day-to-day business transactions efficiently and accurately. This includes activities such as sales order processing, payroll, and inventory management. The primary function of a TPS is to capture and process transactions as they occur, ensuring that data is entered consistently and reported immediately, which supports the operational aspects of a business.

By processing large amounts of necessary business transactions, a TPS helps maintain accurate records and generates essential data that can be used for day-to-day operations. This capability is critical for organizations that rely on timely and precise data to manage their activities and fulfill customer orders. Through automated processing, transaction processing systems also reduce the risk of errors and improve the efficiency of business operations.

Options like facilitating communication among users or providing strategic management information pertain to broader information systems or tools that focus on higher-level management tasks rather than the core function of processing transactions. Evaluating alternative actions for decision-making is a characteristic of decision support systems, which serve a different purpose than a TPS. Thus, the primary achievement of a transaction processing system is its ability to efficiently process and manage business transactions, making option B the correct choice.