Armada Shipping is a global logistics company. The company is organized into two divisions: Contracts and Retail. The Contracts Division, which is by far the larger division, handles customers who have regular shipping requirements and have signed contracts specifying costs and schedule for up to one year. The Retail$-$Division handles shipments for customers who have only occasional shipping requirements and pay on an as$-$used basis. Billing for all customers is handled by the corporate Accounts Receivable Department. Accounts Receivable performs two major activities: billing and accounts. Billing refers to preparing and sending the bills as well as processing the payments. Accounts refers to establishing accounts, ensuring credit status, following up on collection, and sc on$.$

The costs of the Accounts Receivable Department are allocated to the two divisions based on the number of bills prepared. The manager of the Contracts Division has complained that the allocated costs from Accounts Receivable are beginning to make the Contracts Division look unprofitable and has asked the Finance Department to recommend some changes to the allocation system.

Data on costs and activities in the Accounts Receivable Department follow:

$\backslash$table$[[,$Contract,Retail,Total$],[$Number of bills prepared,$900,300,1,200],[$Number of new accounts$/$collections$,20,180,200]]$

The Accounts Receivable Department incurred the following costs during the year.

$\backslash$table$[[$Billing$,$$$84,000$