Golden Leaves Company has two support departments, Maintenance Department (MD) and Personnel Department (PD), and two producing departments, P1 and P2. The Maintenance Department costs of $30,000 are allocated on the basis of standard service used. The Personnel Department costs of $4,500 are allocated on the basis of number of employees. The direct costs of Departments P1 and P2 are $9,000 and $15,000, respectively. Data on standard service hours and number of employees are as follows:

MD PD P1 P2
Standard service hours used 100 50 300 150
Number of employees 10 20 90 90
Direct labor hours 50 50 250 250

Using the direct method, the cost of the Maintenance Department allocated to Department P1 is:

a. $15,000.
b. $10,000.
c. $20,000.
d. $30,000.

In december of 2004, the company you own entered into a 20-year contract with a grain supplier for daily deliveries of grain to its hot dog bun manufacturing facility. the contract called for "10,000 pounds of grain" to be delivered to the facility at the price of $100,000 per day. until february 2017, the supplier provided processed grain which could easily be used in your manufacturing process. however, no longer wanting to absorb the cost of having the grain processed, the supplier began delivering whole grain. the supplier is arguing that the contract does not specify the type of grain that would be supplied and that it has not breached the contract. your company is arguing that the supplier has an onsite processing plant and processed grain was implicit to the terms of the contract. over the remaining term of the contract, reshipping and having the grain processed would cost your company approximately $10,000,000, opposed to a cost of around $1,000,000 to the supplier. after speaking with in-house counsel, it was estimated that litigation would cost the company several million dollars and last for years. weighing the costs of litigation, along with possible ambiguity in the contract, what are three options you could take to resolve the dispute? which would be the best option for your business and why?