# Billing groups
<a name="creating-abc"></a>

When using Billing Conductor as a standalone service, a billing group is a set of accounts within your consolidated billing family that share a common end customer. This applies in the pro forma billing domain only. That end customer maintains the primary account, and can see the cost and usage that accrues across its group. Each billing group's pro forma usage is computed as its own consolidated billing family. Usage shares Reserved Instances and Savings Plans benefits only within the group, accrues volume tier discounts, and an [Always Free Tier](https://www.amazonaws.cn/free/) offering. An account can only associate with one billing group during a billing period.

When using Billing Conductor with billing transfer, a billing group maps one-to-one with the Amazon Organizations transferring its bills. Because of this one-to-one mapping, there are no changes to how reserved instances, Savings Plans, and volume discounts are calculated.

**Note**  
For billing transfer billing groups, the primary account corresponds to the management account transferring its bill (bill source account). All linked accounts in the Amazon Organizations must be included in the billing group because of the one-to-one mapping requirement.

**Contents**
+ [

# Creating billing groups
](create-billing-group.md)
  + [

## Using Billing Conductor as a standalone service
](create-billing-group.md#create-billing-group-standalone)
  + [

## Using Billing Conductor with billing transfer
](create-billing-group.md#create-billing-group-tandem)
+ [Viewing your billing group details](viewing-abc.md)
  + [

## Viewing the billing group table
](viewing-abc.md#table-billing-group)
  + [

## Viewing your pro forma configurations by billing group
](viewing-abc.md#custom-pricing-view-proforma)
  + [

## Viewing your pro forma configurations by linked account
](viewing-abc.md#view-proforma-linked-acct)
  + [

## Viewing your billing details by custom pricing dimensions
](viewing-abc.md#custom-pricing-view)
+ [Configuring Amazon CUR by billing group](configuring-abc.md)
  + [

## Understanding the differences between Amazon Billing Conductor Amazon CUR and standard Amazon CUR
](configuring-abc.md#bp-standardCUR)

# Creating billing groups
<a name="create-billing-group"></a>

## Using Billing Conductor as a standalone service
<a name="create-billing-group-standalone"></a>

You can use Amazon Billing Conductor to create billing groups to organize your accounts. By default, payer accounts with admin permissions can create billing groups. Each billing group is mutually exclusive. This means that an account can only belong to one billing group in a given billing period. Although you can see the billing group segmentation immediately, it takes up to 24 hours after creating a billing group to see the group’s custom rates reflected.

**Note**  
Moving accounts across billing groups in the middle of the month will initiate the recomputation of both billing groups back to the start of the billing period. Moving accounts mid-month doesn't affect previous billing periods.

**To create a billing group**

1. Sign in to the Amazon Web Services Management Console and open Amazon Billing Conductor at [https://console.amazonaws.cn/billingconductor/](https://console.amazonaws.cn/billingconductor/).

1. In the navigation pane, choose **Billing groups**.

1. Choose **Create billing group**.

1. For **Billing group details**, enter the name of the billing group. For naming restrictions, see [Quotas and restrictions](limits.md).

1. (Optional) For **Description**, enter a description for the billing group.

1. Choose `Standard` as the **billing group type**.

1. For **Pricing plan**, choose a pricing plan to associate with the billing group. To create a pricing plan, see [Creating pricing plans](create-pricingplan.md).
   + Alternatively, you can use Amazon managed `BasicPricingPlan`, which is available in the pricing plan dropdown list. The `BasicPricingPlan` calculates gross cloud costs from Amazon. You cannot edit or delete this pricing plan.

1. (Optional) For **Additional settings**, you can enable automatic account association for the billing group.
**Notes**  
Only *one billing group* can have automatic account association.
Once you enable this feature, accounts that are created or added to your organization will be automatically associated to this billing group. You will also receive email notification when the automatic association happens.
If you currently have a CloudTrail logging trail, you can review your automatic account associations in your CloudTrail log.

1. Under **Accounts**, choose one or more accounts to add to the billing group *or* choose **Import organizational unit ** to automatically select the accounts that are within an organizational unit. For a policy example to grant access to the import OU feature, see [Granting Billing Conductor access to the import organizational unit feature](security_iam_id-based-policy-examples.md#security_iam_id-based-policy-examples-ABCaccessOU).

   You can use the table filter to sort by account names, account IDs, or the root email address that's associated with an account.

1. The primary account inherits the ability to see pro forma cost and usage across the billing group, and can generate a pro forma Cost and Usage Reports (Amazon CUR) for the billing group.

   If you choose a primary account that joined your organization during the current month, the pro forma costs for all accounts in that billing group will only include cost and usage accrued since the primary account joined the organization. To check the join date, choose **Validate joined date**. For more information, see [Understanding how the primary account join and leave date affect pro forma billing](best-practices.md#understand-primary-account-join-date).

1. Choose **Create billing group**.
**Notes**  
You must select your primary account in step 9. You can't change your primary account after the billing group is created. To assign a new primary account, delete the billing group and regroup your accounts. While a payer account can be included within a billing group, a payer account can't be assigned the role of the primary account.
If the primary account of a billing group leaves your organization and this billing group has automatic account association enabled, it will continue to automatically associate accounts until the end of the month. Then, the billing group will be automatically deleted. You can enable automatic account association for an existing billing group or create another one.

## Using Billing Conductor with billing transfer
<a name="create-billing-group-tandem"></a>

In one-level transfers, the console will create a new billing group with selected pricing configuration and assign it to the Amazon organization of the bill source account, when the transfer begins. The billing group status appears as 'pending' until the billing transfer date begins.

**Note**  
If you set up billing transfers programmatically using the billing transfer APIs through the Amazon SDK and Amazon CLI, you must also call Billing Conductor APIs to create billing groups and associate pricing plans. This ensures that bill source accounts can view pro forma billing data in their billing and cost management console.

In two-level transfers, the bill transfer (bill receiver) account must configure a billing group manually on the bill source accounts' Amazon Organizations through Billing Conductor. This step enables the bill transfer account to view the costs of their bill source accounts as allocated by the bill transfer (bill receiver) account. For users in the APN Distribution programs, this enables downstream sellers to see how much they owe their distributor for their end-customers' usage.

For support with automating this action, contact Amazon Web Services Support.

**Important**  
If a billing group is not assigned to the Amazon organization of the bill source account, all the accounts in that Amazon organization may not have access to the pro forma cost data when accessing Billing and Cost Management tools.  
Usage data will always remain available to the bill source account and the accounts in its Amazon organizations via CloudWatch.

**To create a billing group manually for billing transfer recovery or two-level transfers**

Use this procedure when automatic billing group creation fails during billing transfer setup or when using two-level transfers.

1. Sign in to the Amazon Web Services Management Console and open Amazon Billing Conductor at [https://console.amazonaws.cn/billingconductor/](https://console.amazonaws.cn/billingconductor/).

1. In the navigation pane, choose **Billing groups**.

1. Choose **Create billing group**.

1. For **Billing group details**, enter the name of the billing group. For naming restrictions, see [Quotas and restrictions](limits.md).

1. (Optional) For **Description**, enter a description for the billing group.

1. Choose `Standard` as the **billing group type**.

1. Choose an individual Amazon Organizations that's transferring its bills for which you want to create a billing group.

   1. If you're using billing transfer with two-level transfers, expand the transfer name to view the organizations available for billing group creation.

   1. The list displays only organizations that aren't associated with a billing group. Organizations that already have an associated billing group don't appear in this list.

1. For **Pricing plan**, choose a pricing plan to associate with the billing group. To create a pricing plan, see [Creating pricing plans](create-pricingplan.md).

1. Choose **Create billing group**.

# Viewing your billing group details
<a name="viewing-abc"></a>

You can use this section to see the different ways you can review your billing group and pricing plan configurations, as well as your output post-creation.

## Viewing the billing group table
<a name="table-billing-group"></a>

After you create a billing group, you can view the details of the billing group in a filterable table. You can filter using the following dimensions:
+ Billing group name
+ Primary account name
+ Primary account ID
+ Number of accounts
+ Pricing plan name

To view the details for each billing group, choose the billing group name in the table. The billing group that you enabled for the automatic account association feature will have an **Auto-associate** icon next to the billing group name.

## Viewing your pro forma configurations by billing group
<a name="custom-pricing-view-proforma"></a>

You can use your billing group details to monitor, analyze, and edit your billing group in Amazon Billing Conductor. The billing group details provide a month-to-date margin analysis, a history of custom line items applied, and the ability to edit and delete the billing group as needed.

**To view your billing group details page**

1. Sign in to the Amazon Web Services Management Console and open Amazon Billing Conductor at [https://console.amazonaws.cn/billingconductor/](https://console.amazonaws.cn/billingconductor/).

1. In the navigation pane, choose **Billing groups**.

1. In the **Billing groups** table, choose the billing group name.

**Note**  
The auto-associate functionality applies only when using Billing Conductor as a standalone service.

## Viewing your pro forma configurations by linked account
<a name="view-proforma-linked-acct"></a>

This feature is available only when using Billing Conductor as a standalone service, not with billing transfer. You can review your billing group configurations by linked account, using the account inventory tool in the Amazon Billing Conductor console.

**To view your billing group configurations by linked account**

1. Sign in to the Amazon Web Services Management Console and open Amazon Billing Conductor at [https://console.amazonaws.cn/billingconductor/](https://console.amazonaws.cn/billingconductor/).

1. In the navigation pane, choose **Account inventory**.

1. In the **Account inventory** table, find your account ID or use the filter to search for the account ID.

1. Choose the account to view the account and billing group configurations.

## Viewing your billing details by custom pricing dimensions
<a name="custom-pricing-view"></a>

After you create and assign your billing groups and pricing plans, you can view your custom billing dimensions with usage type granularity for each billing group.

Use the following steps to view your billing details in the pro forma domain.

**To view your pro forma billing details**

1. Open the Amazon Billing and Cost Management console at [https://console.amazonaws.cn/costmanagement/](https://console.amazonaws.cn/costmanagement/).

1. In the navigation pane, enable **billing view** mode.

1. From the dropdown list, choose** billing transfer **view.

   The dropdown shows your 10 most recently accessed views. To see all views, choose **See all views** at the bottom of the dropdown menu.

1. From the **Billing view** modal, choose either `billing group view` or `billing transfer views`.

1. Use the search bar to filter results across all columns in the table.

   Search for views using these parameters:

   - View name (partial match, starts with)

   - Account ID (exact match)

   - Type (exact match for` BILLING_TRANSFER` or `BILLING_TRANSFER_SHOWBACK`)

   - Billing period (choose month)

1. Select the desired billing view and select **Choose view**.

When using Billing Conductor as a standalone service, you can analyze billing group usage and costs by service and Amazon Web Services Region through billing group views. The costs reflect the rates defined in your pricing configuration.

You can analyze pro forma usage for Amazon Organizations transferring their bills by using billing transfer views of type `Showback/Chargeback`. You can use all available Cost Explorer filters to analyze your billing transfer views.

You can find the custom line items under the service **Amazon Billing Conductor** on the **Billing details** page.

# Configuring Cost and Usage Reports by billing group
<a name="configuring-abc"></a>

You can create pro forma Amazon Cost and Usage Reports (Amazon CUR) for each billing group that you create. The pro forma Amazon CUR has the same file format, granularity, and columns as the standard Amazon CUR, and contains the most comprehensive set of cost and usage data available for a given period of time.

**Note**  
The split cost allocation data functionality isn't available for billing transfer users. Disable this option when creating your preferences.  
When you configure the using the Legacy Pages path, the console doesn't display the billing view option. This option is available only through the **Data Exports** to **Legacy CUR** path.

You can publish your pro forma Amazon CUR to an Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket that you own.

Amazon updates the report in your bucket once a day in comma-separated values (CSV) or Apache Parquet format. You can view the reports using spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel and Apache OpenOffice Calc. You can also access them from an application using the Amazon S3 or Amazon Athena APIs. For more information about the standard Amazon CUR, see the [Amazon Cost and Usage Reports User Guide](https://docs.amazonaws.cn/cur/latest/userguide/what-is-cur.html).

## Understanding the differences between Amazon Billing Conductor Amazon CUR and standard Amazon CUR
<a name="bp-standardCUR"></a>

There are a few differences between the standard Cost and Usage Reports and pro forma Amazon CUR created using the Amazon Billing Conductor configuration.
+ The standard Amazon CUR computes the cost and usage for each account in your consolidated billing family. A pro forma Amazon CUR per billing group only includes the accounts in the billing group at the time of computation.
+ The standard Amazon CUR populates the invoice column once and invoice is generated by Amazon. A pro forma Amazon CUR doesn't populate the invoice column. Currently, no invoice is generated, or issued by Amazon based on pro forma billing data.

Use the following steps to generate a pro forma Amazon CUR for a billing group.<a name="create-bgcur-steps"></a>

**To create pro forma Cost and Usage Reports for a billing group**

1. Open the Amazon Billing and Cost Management console at [https://console.amazonaws.cn/costmanagement/](https://console.amazonaws.cn/costmanagement/).

1. On the navigation pane, choose **Cost & Usage Reports**.

1. Choose **Create report**.

1. Choose **Export tytpe**.

1. For **Report name**, enter a name for your report.

1. For **Billing view**, choose one of the following options:

   - When using Billing Conductor as a standalone service, choose **Billing group view**

   - When using Billing Conductor with billing transfer, choose **Billing transfer view**

   1. To include pro forma data in your , choose **Showback/Chargeback view** for your billing transfer view

1. For **Additional report details**, select **Include resource IDs** to include the IDs of each individual resource in the report.

1. For **Data refresh settings**, select whether you want the Amazon Cost and Usage Reports to refresh with any new changes to your cost and usage data after finalizing your bill. When a report refreshes, a new report is uploaded to Amazon S3.
**Note**  
Billing group Cost and Usage Reports don't include credits, tax, or support charges.

1. Choose **Next**.

1. For **S3 bucket**, choose **Configure**.

1. In the **Configure S3 Bucket** dialog box, do one of the following:
   + Choose an existing bucket from the dropdown list, and then choose **Next**.
   + Enter a bucket name and the Amazon Region where you want to create a new bucket, and choose **Next**.

1. Select **I have confirmed that this policy is correct**, and choose **Save**.

1. For **Report path prefix**, enter the report path prefix that you want prepended to the name of your report. 

   This step is optional for Amazon Redshift or Quick, but required for Amazon Athena.

   If you don't specify a prefix, the default prefix is the name that you specified for the report in step 4 and the date range for the report, in the following format:

   `/report-name/date-range/`

1. For **Time granularity**, choose one of the following:
   + **Hourly** if you want the line items in the report to be aggregated by the hour.
   + **Daily** if you want the line items in the report to be aggregated by the day.

1. For **Report versioning**, choose whether you want each version of the report to overwrite the previous version of the report or to be delivered in addition to the previous versions.

1. For **Enable report data integration for**, choose whether you want to upload your Cost and Usage Reports to Amazon Athena, Amazon Redshift, or Quick. The report is compressed in the following formats:
   + **Athena**: parquet compression
   + **Amazon Redshift or Quick**: .gz compression

1. Choose **Next**.

1. After reviewing the settings for your report, choose **Review and Complete**.