Cost reporting for an AWS Organization
Connect the management account, see every member account, give each account or team a segment and a budget, and schedule the report.
An AWS Organization bills through one management account, and its member accounts are where the teams spend. This guide connects the organization once, makes every member account visible, turns accounts into owners with segments, puts a budget on each, and delivers a report on a schedule. Each step links to the page that owns the detail.
Before you start
- An organization role in Costfluent that can add connections, and access to the organization's management account in AWS; see Access model.
- The member accounts you will report on, and which team owns each. The Organizations console lists them.
1. Connect the management account
Connect the management account, and only it: its export covers every member account, and a member account connected as well would count its cost twice, so Costfluent refuses it. Until the first export arrives, 24 to 72 hours later, the rows come from Cost Explorer and carry accounts and services but no resources or tags. See Connect AWS.
2. Check the member accounts
Open the connection from the Manage tab: its Accounts card lists the management account as Collecting and each member account as Covered. An account missing there is not a member of the organization you connected. See After connecting.
3. See cost per account
In the explorer, group by Sub-account: each row is one member account, by its ID, and Select values in a filter lists the same accounts. Add Service as a second grouping to see what each account runs. See Explore cost data.
4. Make accounts into owners
Add one segment per team, or per account where an account is a team. Then add one rule per segment with a Sub-account condition that names the team's account IDs; a team that owns several accounts needs one rule listing them all. Preview each rule and watch coverage rise until the unallocated share is one you can explain. See Segments and allocation rules.
5. Put a budget on each segment
Create a monthly budget per segment and choose that segment under Measures: it counts the segment's allocated cost, its direct cost and its share of shared cost, and crosses its thresholds at 50, 80 and 100 percent. Pick the team's channel under Send to. See Budgets.
6. Deliver the report
Save a report grouped by Segment, then Sub-account, over the current month, and schedule it monthly to the people who review it; for one team, save a report filtered to its accounts and schedule that one to the team. See Save and manage reports and Share and schedule reports.
Keep it true
- A new member account appears under Sub-account with its first cost, and under no segment until a rule names it. Add it to the owning team's rule; the rule restates past months too.
- Moving an account between teams is a rule change, not a report change.