Business Writing After starting his first full$-$time position for a private company, Ronin was anxious to go above and beyond the expectations of his supervisor. So$,$ when Sondra asked him to complete the support department cost allocations for all departments using the same method as they used last year, he thought, "Here's my chance!". In addition to the step method that this company was currently using. Ronin remembered learning two other methods for allocating these costs $-$ the direct method and the reciprocal method.

The two operating segments of this company reflect their locations $-$ Suburban and Downtown. The two support departments are administrative services and maintenance services. Their costs have been allocated by administrative hours and maintenance hours, respectively. Here are the relveany costs and usages for all four of these departments.

Required

a$.$ Rank the two support departments based an their original cost $($as was done last year$),$ and allocate thesupport department costs using the step method.

b$.$ Allocate the support department costs instead using the dfrect method.

c$.$ Allocate the support department cosis one more time, this lime using the reciprocal method in Excel $($youmay check the reasonableness of each total support department cost estimate by solving by hand$).$

d$.$ Putting yourself in Ronin's shoes, write an email to his supervisor explaining what he did and what the different allocation results show, Make a recominendation to Sondra as to whether the company should continue to use the step method or consider switching to one of the other two methods.