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Cost Management is natively available to direct partners who have their customers onboarded into a Microsoft Customer Agreement andpurchased an Azure plan. This article explains how to use partnerscost managementResources to view the cost of subscriptions in the Azure plan. It also describes how partners enable their customers to access Cost Management at retail prices.
For direct partners and indirect providers, the global admin and admin agents can access cost management in the partner tenant and manage costs with billed prices.
Resellers and customers can access Cost Management within the customer's tenant and view consumption costs for each individual subscription, with costs calculated and displayed at retail prices. However, you must have Azure RBAC access to the subscription in the customer's tenant to see the costs. The cost transparency policy must be activated by the provider for the customer's tenant.
Customers can use cost management features if enabled by their CSP partners.
CSP partners use Cost Management to:
- Understand billed costs and allocate costs to customers, subscriptions, resource groups, and services.
- Get an intuitive view of Azure costs atcost analysiswith cost analysis capabilities by customer, subscription, resource group, resource, meter, service and many other dimensions.
- View costs for resources that have Partner Earned Credit (PEC) applied in the cost analysis.
- Configure notifications and automation with programmaticBudgetsand alerts when costs exceed budget.
- Enable the Azure Resource Manager policy that provides client access to Cost Management data. Customers can also view consumption cost data for their subscriptionsprepaid fees.
- Export your cost and usage data to a storage blob with a pay-as-you-go subscription.
Here's an example showing the cost for all customers.
Here's an example showing the cost for a single customer.
All functionality available in Cost Management is also available with REST APIs. Use APIs to automate expense management tasks.
requirements
As a partner, Cost Management is only natively available for subscriptions on the Azure plan.
To enable Cost Management in the Azure portal, you must confirm the customer's acceptance of the Microsoft Customer Agreement (on behalf of the customer) and transition the customer to the Azure plan. Only costs for subscriptions that are carried over to the Azure plan are available in Cost Management.
Cost Management requires read access to your billing or subscription account.
For more information about enabling and assigning Cost Management access to a billing account, seeAssign roles and permissions to users. Öglobal admineAdmin-AgentRoles can manage costs for a billing account.
To access Cost Management at the subscription level, any user with Azure RBAC access to a subscription can view costs at retail (pay-as-you-go) prices. However, theCost Transparency Policy for Customer Tenantsmust be activated. For a full list of supported account types, seeUnderstand cost management data.
When transferring existing billing agreements to a new partner, charge management features are only available for the current billing partner relationship. Any charges incurred prior to the transfer to the new partner will not be transferred to the new billing account. However, the cost history remains with the originally associated billing account.
How Cost Management uses areas
In Scopes you manage invoice data, have specific functions for payments, view invoices and carry out general account management. Billing and account roles are managed separately from scopes used for resource management that use Azure RBAC. To clearly differentiate the intent of the separate scopes, including differences in access control, they are referred to as billing scopes and Azure RBAC scopes, respectively.
For information about Azure billing scopes and RBAC scopes, and how cost management works with scopes, seeUnderstand and work with scopes.
Manage costs with billing scopes for partner clients
After you enroll your customers in a Microsoft Customer Agreement, the following appliesbilling areasare available from your landlord. Use ranges to manage costs in Cost Management.
Billing Account Scope
Use the billing account section to view pre-tax costs for all your customers and billing profiles. Invoice costs are only displayed for products based on customer consumption in the Microsoft Customer Agreement. However, invoice costs are displayed for products on a purchase-to-customer basis in the Microsoft Customer Agreement and CSP offer. Currently, the default currency for displaying costs in the scope is US dollars. The budgets defined for the scope are also given in USD.
Regardless of the different billing currencies, partners use the billing account scope to set budgets and manage USD costs for their customers, subscriptions, resources, and resource groups.
Partners also filter costs in a specific billing currency across customers in the cost analysis view. Choosereal costsList to view costs in supported billing currencies.
Use oAmortized cost viewin billing scopes to show the amortized cost of the reserved instance over a reservation period.
Scope of the billing profile
Use the billing profile section to view the pre-tax cost in the billing currency of all your customers for all products and subscriptions that are included in an invoice. You can filter costs in a billing profile for a specific invoice usingInvoice on IDFilter. The filter shows the consumption and acquisition cost of the product for a specific bill. You can also filter the cost for a specific customer on the invoice to see the pre-tax cost.
After you enroll customers in a Microsoft Customer Agreement, you will receive an invoice that includes all charges for all products (consumption, purchases, and entitlements) for those customers in the Microsoft Customer Agreement. When billed in the same currency, these invoices also include fees for purchased entitlements and products such as SaaS, Azure Marketplace, and reservations for customers who are still on the classic CSP offering and not on the Azure plan.
To help you reconcile charges against your customer's invoice, the billing profile panel allows you to view all accrued charges for an invoice for your customers. Like the invoice, the scope shows the cost for each customer in the new Microsoft Customer Agreement. The pane also shows any customer entitlement product fees that are still included in the current CSP offering.
The Billing Profile and Billing Account panes are the only applicable panes that show charges for purchase-based entitlements and products such as Azure Marketplace and reservation purchases.
Billing profiles define the subscriptions included in an invoice. Billing profiles are the functional equivalent of a business contract record. A billing profile is the area where invoices are generated.
Currently, the billing currency is the default currency when displaying costs as part of the billing profile. Budgets defined as part of the billing profile are specified in the billing currency.
Partners can use the area to match invoices. And they use scope to define budgets in billing currency for the following items:
- Specific filtered invoice
- Client
- enrollment
- resource group
- Resource
- Azure Service
- Metro
- Revended oder MPNID
customer area
Partners use the scope to manage costs associated with customers that are integrated into the Microsoft Customer Agreement. By setting the scope, partners can view the pre-tax cost for a specific customer in a billing currency. You can also filter the pre-tax cost for a specific subscription, resource group, or resource.
Customer scope does not include customers included in the current CSP offering. Scope includes only customers who have a Microsoft Customer Agreement.
Entitlement costs, not Azure usage, for current customers of the CSP offering are available in the Billing Account and Billing Profile sections when you apply the customer filter. Budgets defined in this area are specified in the accounting currency.
To view customer-level costs, navigate to Cost Analysis in the partner tenant, select the area selector, and then select the specific customer from the list of areas. Here is an example of thatContoso-DiensteClient.
Partner access to billing scopes in cost management
Only users withglobal admineAdmin-AgentRoles can manage and view costs for billing accounts, billing profiles, and customers directly in the partner's Azure tenant. For more information on Partner Center features, seeAssign roles and permissions to users.
Enable cost management for customer tenant subscriptions
Partners can enable access to Cost Management after customers are enrolled in a Microsoft Customer Agreement. Partners can then enable a policy that allows customers to view their costs for services consumed by Azure, which are billed at prepaid retail prices. Costs are shown in the customer's billing currency for consumed usage across Azure RBAC subscription and resource group scopes.
If the cost transparency policy is enabled by the partner, any user with Azure Resource Manager access to the subscription can manage and review costs with prepaid plans. In fact, resellers and customers who have the appropriate Azure RBAC access to Azure subscriptions can view the costs.
Regardless of the policy, global admins and provider admin agents can view subscription costs if they have access to the subscription and resource group.
Enable the policy to view Azure usage charges
You must be a memberadministrative agentGroup to view and update the policy. Use the information below to enable the policy that allows customers to view Azure usage charges.
In the Azure portal, enter nopartner tenantsand selectCost Management + Billing. In the Billing Scope area, select the appropriate billing scope, and then selectcustomers. The customer list is associated with the billing account.If you accidentally enter the customer client, it will not be displayedcustomersListing.
From the customer list, select the customer you want to allow to view the costs.
Underthe settings, Selectguidelines.
The current cost transparency policy is displayedUse AzureFees related to subscriptions for the selected customer.
When the policy is set toNot, Cost Management is not available for subscription users linked to the customer. Unless enabled by a partner, the cost visibility policy is disabled by default for all subscription users.
When the cost policy is set toSim, subscription users associated with the customer's tenant can see usage charges for prepaid plans.
When the cost visibility policy is enabled, all services that have subscription usage show costs with prepaid plans. Reservation usage is shown for both actual and zero-rate amortized costs. Purchases and entitlements are not tied to a specific subscription. Therefore, subscription purchases are not displayed. The global admin/admin of a direct partner or an indirect provider can also use itUpdate the client APIto define each client's cost transparency policy on a large scale.
View and enable all policies
You can also view and change policies for Azure Bookings, Azure Marketplace, Azure Billing, and Tag Management in one place. Policy settings apply to all customers in the billing profile.
To view or change policies:
- Navigate to in the Azure portalcost management(not cost management + billing).
- In the left menu belowthe settings, Selectsettings.
- The billing profile configuration is displayed. Policies are shown as enabled or disabled. If you want to change a policy, selectTo editunder a directive.
- If necessary, change the policy settings and selectointment .
View subscription costs for the customer tenant
To view the cost of a subscription, openCost Management + Billingin the customer's Azure tenant. Selectcost analysisand then the required subscription to start checking the costs. You can view consumption costs for each subscription individually on the customer's tenant.
Cost analysis, budgets, and alerts are available for Azure RBAC scopes and resource group subscriptions that are charged based on usage-based pricing tiers.
Amortized views and actual costs for reserved instances in Azure RBAC regions do not show any charges. Costs for purchasing entitlements such as Reserved Instances and Marketplace fees only appear in billing scopes in the partner tenant where purchases were made.
The retail prices used to calculate the costs shown in the view are the same prices shown in the Azure pricing calculator for all customers. The costs shown do not include any discounts or credits that the partner may have, such as B. Partner-earned credits, tier discounts, and global service discounts.
Analyze the costs in the cost analysis
Partners with access to billing scopes for partner tenants can examine and analyze billed costs in the cross-customer cost analysis for a specific customer or for an invoice. You can also save views in the cost analysis.
Azure RBAC users with subscription access in the customer's tenant can also review subscription retail costs in the customer's tenant, save views, and export data to CSV and PNG files.
You can use filter and grouping features in Cost Analysis to analyze costs by different fields. Partner-specific fields are shown in the next section.
data fields
The following data fields are found in usage details files and cost management APIs. Corresponding Partner Center information is displayed where available. For the following fields in bold, partners can use filter and group by features in cost analysis to analyze costs by multiple fields. Bold fields apply only to Microsoft Customer Agreements supported by partners.
| Feldname | description | Partner Center equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Invoice with ID | Invoice ID displayed on the invoice for the specific transaction. | Invoice number where the transaction appears. |
| previousInvoice ID | A refund (negative cost) will be made with reference to an original invoice. Only filled in if there is a refund. | N / D |
| billing account name | Name of the billing account that represents the partner. It collects all costs for customers who have signed a Microsoft Customer Agreement and for CSP customers who have purchased entitlements such as SaaS, Azure Marketplace and Reservations. | N / D |
| Billing Account ID | Identifier of the billing account representing the partner. | Root ID of the MCAPI partner trade. Used in a request but not included in a response. |
| Billing Profile ID | Identifier for the billing profile that groups costs across invoices in a single billing currency for customers who have a Microsoft Customer Agreement and CSP customers who have purchased entitlements such as SaaS, Azure Marketplace, and Reservations. | Accounting group ID of the MCAPI partner. Used in a request but not included in a response. |
| billingProfileName | Name of the billing profile that groups costs on invoices for customers who have signed a Microsoft Customer Agreement and CSP customers who have purchased entitlements such as SaaS, Azure Marketplace, and Reservations in a single billing currency. | N / D |
| Invoice section name | Name of the project that is billed on the invoice. Not applicable to partner-integrated Microsoft Customer Agreements. | N / D |
| Invoice Section ID | Identifier of the billed project on the invoice. Not applicable to partner-integrated Microsoft Customer Agreements. | N / D |
| Tenant ID | Azure Active Directory tenant ID of customer subscription. | Customer Organization ID - The customer's Azure Active Directory tenant ID. |
| Customer Name | Azure Active Directory tenant name for the customer's subscription. | Name of the customer's organization as displayed in Partner Center. Important to reconcile the invoice with the information in your system. |
| ClienteTenantDomainName | Domain name for the customer's subscribed Azure Active Directory tenant. | Customer's Azure Active Directory tenant domain. |
| PartnerTenantID | Azure Active Directory-Mandanten-ID des Partners. | Azure Active Directory tenant ID of the partner known as Partner ID in GUID format. |
| Partnername | Mandantenname des Azure Active Directory-Partners. | Partnername. |
| Revended oder MPNID | Reseller ID associated with the subscription. | Reseller ID registered for the subscription. Not available for the current activity. |
| Cost centre | Cost center associated with the subscription. | N / D |
| billingPeriodStartDate | Billing cycle start date as shown on the invoice. | N / D |
| billingPeriodEndDate | Billing period end date as shown on the invoice. | N / D |
| servicePeriodStartDate | Start date of the evaluation period for which service usage was evaluated for charges. Azure services are priced for the evaluation period. | ChargeStartDate in Partner Center Billing cycle start date, except when showing previously unbilled deferred usage data from a previous billing cycle. The time is always the beginning of the day, 0:00. |
| servicePeriodEndDate | End date of period in which service usage was classified for charges. Azure services are priced based on the evaluation period. | N / D |
| meeting | For Azure usage data, usage date is displayed sorted. For Reserved Instances, displays the purchase date. For recurring and one-time charges, such as Marketplace and Support, the date of purchase is displayed. | N / D |
| Product ID | Identifier of the product for which consumption or purchase fees were incurred. It's the concatenated key of ProductID and SKuID as shown in Partner Center. | The product identification. |
| Products | Name of the product for which consumption or purchase charges were incurred, as shown on the invoice. | The name of the product in the catalog. |
| service family | Displays the service family of the purchased or billed product. For example Storage or Compute. | N / D |
| Product Order ID | The asset ID or name of the Azure plan to which the subscription belongs. Example: Azure plan. | CommerceSubscriptionID |
| Product order name | The name of the Azure plan to which the subscription belongs. Example: Azure plan. | N / D |
| consumed service | Consumed Service (Legacy Taxonomy) as used in Legacy EA Usage Details. | The service shown in Partner Center. Example: Microsoft.Storage, Microsoft.Compute, and microsoft.operationalinsights. |
| subways | Metered identifier for the metered consumption. | The ID of the counter used. |
| meterName | Identifies the meter name for metered consumption. | The name of the consumed counter. |
| meterCategory | Identifies the top-level service to use. | The top level service for use. |
| meterSubCategory | Defines the type or subcategory of Azure service that can affect the rate. | The type of Azure service that can affect the rate. |
| meterRegion | Identifies the data center location for certain services billed based on data center location. | The regional location of a data center for services, if applicable and documented. |
| Registration ID | Microsoft-generated unique identifier for the Azure subscription. | Entitlement ID |
| subscription name | Name of Azure-Subscriptions. | N / D |
| Deadline | Displays the validity period of the offer. For example, Reserved Instances show 12 months of an annual Reserved Instance term. For one-time or recurring purchases, the term shows one month for SaaS, Azure Marketplace, and Support. Does not apply to use of Azure. | N / D |
| Offerer | Product and industry identifier. Break down costs by provider type: Azure, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, AWS, etc. | N / D |
| PublisherType (firstParty, ThirdPartyReseller, ThirdPartyAgency) | Publisher type that identifies the publisher as own, third-party reseller, or third-party agency. | N / D |
| number of pieces | Part number of unused Reserved Instance and Azure Marketplace services. | N / D |
| Publisher name | Service publisher name, including Microsoft or third-party publishers. | The name of the publisher of the product. |
| Booking ID | Identifier for the Reserved Instance purchase. | N / D |
| reservaNome | Reserved instance name. | N / D |
| reservaPedidoId | OrderID for the reserved instance. | N / D |
| frequency | Payment frequency for a Reserved Instance. | N / D |
| resource group | Azure resource group name used for lifecycle resource management. | Resource group name. |
| Instance ID (ou) Resource ID | Identifier of the resource instance. | Appears as a ResourceURI containing full resource properties. |
| resource location | Resource location name. | The location of the resource. |
| Ort | Normalized resource location. | N / D |
| effective price | The effective unit price of the service in the currency of the price. Unique to a product, service family, meter, and offer. Used with prices in the billing account pricing scheme. If there are tiered prices or a quantity is included, the combined price for consumption will be displayed. | The unit price after adjustments. |
| The sum | Measured quantity purchased or consumed. The amount of meters consumed during the billing period. | Number of Units. During reconciliation, make sure they match the information in your billing system. |
| Unit of measurement | Identifies the unit in which the service is billed. Example: GB and Hours. | Identifies the unit in which the service is billed. For example GB, hours and 10,000 s. |
| PricesCurrency | The currency that defines the unit price. | The currency in the price list. |
| billing currency | The currency that defines the invoiced cost. | The currency that is defined as the invoice currency on the invoice. |
| fee type | Defines the type of charge that represents the cost in Cost Management, e.g. B. Purchase and Refund. | The type of load or setting. Not available for the current activity. |
| costinBillingCurrency | ExtendedCost or combined pre-tax cost in billing currency. | N / D |
| custom pricing currency | ExtendedCost or pre-tax blended cost in price currency to correlate with prices. | N / D |
| Costs in US Dollars | Estimated expanded cost or combined cost before tax in USD. | N / D |
| paygCostInBillingCurrency | Shows the cost if the prices are retail. Show prepaid prices in billing currency. Only available in Azure RBAC scopes. | N / D |
| paygCostInUSD | Shows the cost if the prices are retail. Displays prepaid prices in USD. Only available in Azure RBAC scopes. | N / D |
| exchange rate | Exchange rate used to convert from price currency to billing currency. | Referred to as PCToBCExchangeRate in Partner Center. The exchange rate of the price currency to the settlement currency. |
| Exchange rate date | The date of the exchange rate used to convert from price currency to settlement currency. | Referred to as PCToBCExchangeRateDat in Partner Center. The price currency for the settlement currency exchange rate date. |
| isAzureCreditEligible | Indicates whether the cost of paying by Azure credit is eligible. | N / D |
| serviceInfo1 | Legacy field that captures service-specific optional metadata. | Built-in Azure service metadata. |
| serviceInfo2 | Legacy field that captures service-specific optional metadata. | information service. For example, an image type for a virtual machine and an ISP name for ExpressRoute. |
| additional information | Service-Specific Metadata. For example, an image type for a virtual machine. | Any additional information not included in other columns. The service-specific metadata. For example, an image type for a virtual machine. |
| Sign | Tag you assign to the meter. Use tags to group billing records. For example, you can use tags to allocate costs to departments using the counter. | Tags added by customer. |
| partnerEarnedCreditRate | Discount rate is applied when there is PEC (Partner Earned Credit) based on access to partner admin link. | The partner earned credit rate (PEC). For example 0% or 15%. |
| partnerEarnedCreditApplied | Indicates whether the credit purchased from the partner has been applied. | N / D |
View the cost of partner earned credit (PEC) resources
In Cost Management, partners can use cost analytics to visualize costs that have received PEC benefits.
Sign in to the partner tenant in the Azure portal and selectCost Management + Billing. Undercost management, Selectcost analysis.
The Cost Analysis view shows the costs for the partner's billing account. ChooseTo reachas needed for the partner, a specific customer, or a billing profile to match invoices.
In a donut chart, select the dropdown menu and selectPartnerGainAppliedCreditDetails of the cost of the PEC.
If thePartnerGainAppliedCreditproperty isReal, the associated costs will benefit the administrator access purchased by the partner.
If thePartnerGainAppliedCreditproperty isNOT CORRECT, the associated costs did not correspond to the required eligibility for the loan. Or the purchased service is not eligible for credits purchased from the partner.
It typically takes 8 to 24 hours for service usage data to appear in Cost Management. For more information, seeUpdating and retention of cost and usage data. PEC credits will appear within 48 hours of accessing Cost Management.
You can also group and filter byPartnerGainAppliedCreditproperty with thegroup byoptions. Use the options to review costs with and without PEC.
Export cost data to Azure Storage
Partners with access to billing scopes in a partner tenant can export their cost and usage data to an Azure storage blob. The blob must be in a subscription on the partner tenant that is not an aShared-Service-Abonnementor a customer's signature. To enable cost data export, we recommend that you set up a standalone pay-as-you-go subscription on the partner tenant to host the exported cost data. The export storage account is created on the Azure storage blob hosted in the prepaid subscription. Based on the area where the partner creates the export, the associated data is automatically and regularly exported to the storage account.
Users with Azure RBAC access to the subscription can also export the cost data to an Azure storage blob hosted in any subscription in the customer's tenant.
Create an export for a partner tenant or customer tenant
Sign in to your partner or customer tenant in the Azure portal and selectCost Management + Billing. Choose an appropriate area, e.g. B. A billing account with a Microsoft Partner Agreement and selectcost analysis. When the page loads, selectExport. SelectShow all exportsplan to export.
Then selectAdd toand enter the name and select an export type. ChooseSave on computertab and enter the required information.
When creating an export for the partner tenant, select the prepaid subscription for the partner tenant. Create an Azure storage account with this subscription.
For Azure RBAC users in the customer's tenant, select a subscription in the customer's tenant. Create an Azure storage account using the subscription.
Check the content and chooseCryto schedule an export.
To examine the data in the export list, select the storage account name. Select on the storage account pagecontainerand then select the container. Navigate to the appropriate folder and select the CSV file. SelectDownloadto get and open the CSV file. Exported data is similar to cost data, which is similar to usage details from the Azure portal.
Cost Management-REST-APIs
Partners and their customers can use cost management APIs for common tasks. For more information, seeAutomation for partners.
Next Steps
- Start with the cost analysisin cost management
- Create and manage budgetsin cost management