After taking some accounting courses from the acclaimed professor, Brent Trentham, at Vanderbilt University, Cornelius and Sophia Vanderbilt (Did you know that Sophia was Cornelius's first cousin?) built a thriving accounting practice in the Nashville area. To give back to the community, they opened a separate office with the intent of offering accounting services to small businesses at cost. Sophia suggested operating the office for couple of months with an initial billing rate of $25 per hour. After collecting cost data for a couple of months, she and Cornelius could then adjust the rate. Activity and cost data for the first two months follow