A basic purpose of a responsibility accounting system is to measure the performance of specific responsibility centers. This means that the revenue and costs upon which a center is evaluated should be traceable directly to that center and, ideally, be under the center manager s control Chamberlain is correct that allocating all fixed costs of the hotel (many of which are common costs on the basis of gross revenue penalizes profit center. Not only is the profit center charged with more costs as its revenue rises, but also it can be charged with more costs merely because the revenue in other profit centers declines. Thus, center performance may be obscured. the performance of strong profit centers may beunderstated, and the performance of weaker centers may be overstated since these centers are charged with less costs In summary, Chamberlain's criticisms of the existing approach to assigning costs to profit centers are valid His suggestion that fixed costs should instead be allocated in proportion to square feet of space is discussed below Evaluation of Mettenburg's comments: Mettenburg is also correct in her criticism of Chamberlain's suggestion that fixed costs should be allocated on a basis of square feet of occupied space. Many fixed costs, such as salaries, may bear little or no relationship to square space Further, space occupied by a department may be a matter of circumstances not under the center's manager's direct control Mettenburg, for example, does not have the option of "shrinking" the Sunset Lounge The criticisms of the two managers point out that any allocation of common costs is necessarily arbitrary, rewarding some profit centers, but penalizing others