6.1 Grouping constructs for resources and/or services

Providers natively support various constructs for grouping resources and/or services. These grouping constructs are often used to mimic organizational structures, technical architectures, cost attribution/allocation and access management boundaries, or other customer-specific structures based on requirements.

Providers may support multiple levels of resource and/or service grouping mechanisms. FOCUS supports two distinct levels of groupings that are commonly needed for FinOps capabilities like chargeback, invoice reconciliation and cost allocation.

• Billing account: A mandatory container for resources and/or services that are billed together in an invoice. Billing accounts are commonly used for scenarios like grouping based on organizational constructs, invoice reconciliation and cost allocation strategies.
• Sub account: An optional provider-supported construct for organizing resources and services connected to a billing account. Sub accounts are commonly used for scenarios like grouping based on organizational constructs, access management needs and cost allocation strategies. Sub accounts must be associated with a billing account as they do not receive invoices.

The table below highlights key properties of the two grouping constructs supported by FOCUS.

^* For organizations that have multiple AWS Member Accounts within an AWS Organization, consolidated billing is enabled by default and invoices are received at Management Account level. A Member Account can be removed from AWS consolidated billing whereby the removed account receives independent invoices and is responsible for payments.