Question 1. (25 marks) M&W is a large company which operates in a particular industry. There are support departments (HR and Info Systems) and Operating Departments (Corporate Sales and Consumer Sales) in M&W. Notice that both HR and Info Systems conduct merchandising and marketing operations independently from one another. Also, the number of employees is used to allocate HR costs while the amount of processing time is used to allocate Info Systems costs. The data about M&W are: Support Departments HR Information Systems Operating Departments Corporate Sales Consumer Sales 220,500 235,000 2,700,000 4,590,000 Budgeted Costs Incurred before any: Interdepart. Cost Allocations (S) Support Work supplied by HR Department Budgeted # of Employees Support Work supplied by Info Systems Department Budgeted Processing Time (minutes) 120 150 200 800 1800 2450 Required: 1. Allocate the support departments' costs to the operating departments using the direct method. (5 marks) 2. Rank the support departments based on the percentage of their services provided to other support departments. Use this ranking to allocate the support departments' costs to the operating departments based on the step-down method. (7 marks) 3. Allocate the support departments' costs (human resources and information systems) to the two operating departments using method of algebraic equations (8 marks) 4. Summarize your results obtained using each of the three methods. (2 marks) 5. Is reapportioning service cost centre costs is generally worthwhile? Are there any other treatments for such costs? (3 marks