are the costs of activities that managers cannot trace to individual products or services but that support the organization as a whole. In the Plastim example and at companies such as Volvo, Samsung, and General Electric, the general administration costs (including top management compensation, rent and building security) are facility-sustaining costs. Is is usually difficult to find a good cause-and-effect relationship between these cost and the cost-allocation base, so some companies deduct facility-sustaining costs as a separate lump-sum operating income rather than allocate them to products. Managers who follow this approach need to keep in mind that when making decisions based on costs (such as pricing), some lump-sum costs have not been allocated. They must set prices that are much greater than the allocated costs to recover some of the unallocated facility-sustaining costs. Other companies, such as Plastim, allocate facility-sustaining costs to products on some basis-for example, direct manufacturing labor-hours-because management believes all costs should be allocated to products even if it's done in a somewhat arbitrary way. Allocating all costs to products or services ensures that managers have taken into account all costs when making decisions based on costs (such as pricing). So long as managers are aware of the nature of facility-sustaining costs and the pros and cons of allocating them, which method a manager chooses is a matter of personal preference.