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Using Billing Explorer to Analyze Cloud Spend

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Consider the following:

  • To access the Billing Explorer page, your organization must have the Billing and Managed Service Provider capabilities of Flexera One.

  • The Manage organization or View cloud costs role is required to view the Billing Explorer page. For complete descriptions of each role available in Flexera One, see Flexera One Roles.

Billing Explorer helps the Managed Service Provider (MSP) parent organization understand how cloud costs are passed down to their customers (child organizations). Using Billing Explorer, MSPs get a clear picture of what cloud providers billed the MSP and what the MSP billed their customers, providing visibility into their margins.

For past months, Billing Explorer shows a locked snapshot of each month as it was billed to customers. If a cloud provider posts new charges later for a locked month, those updates do not appear in Billing Explorer unless you unlock the bill for that month and reprocess it.

On the Billing Explorer page (Customers > Customers > Billing Explorer), you can:

  • Analyze individual cloud bills or group them by provider

  • Compare customer cloud bills using key cost metrics, including:

    • List Cost
    • Billed Cost
    • Effective Cost
    • Modified Billed Cost
    • Modified Effective Cost
    • Billed Cost Margin
    • Billed Cost Margin Percentage
    • Effective Cost Margin
    • Effective Cost Margin Percentage
    • Pricing Quantity
    • Consumed Quantity

  • View total and aggregated customer spend

  • Break down cloud spend by various provider dimensions

The customer’s cloud spend only appears in the parent organization if the cloud bill is ingested at the parent level. Cloud bills that are ingested only in the child organizations are not visible in the parent.

Customer spend can be viewed using the rule-based dimension used for bill-splitting and selecting the child organization name.

The Billing Explorer page has several options to control the data shown:

  • Date Selector in Billing Explorer—Enables you to adjust the time range for the data displayed on the page. Click the date selector to open the picker. After the date selector is set, its configuration is saved as you navigate across other pages.

  • Filters in Billing Explorer—Enables you to specify which dimension values to show in the Billing Explorer and gives you a granular view into your cloud cost. To add filters, click the plus sign (+) next to Add dimension, select the check boxes next to the dimensions that you want to add, and then select the dimension values that you want to use to filter data in the Billing Explorer.

    Dimensions

    You can choose from the following dimensions to filter data in the Billing Explorer:

    • Billing Centers

      • Billing Centers

    • FOCUS

      • Location
        • Availability Zone
        • Region ID
      • Profile
        • Bill Source
        • Billing Profile ID
        • Billing Profile Name
        • Customer Name
        • Customer Tenant ID
        • Partner Name
        • Partner Tenant ID
      • Account
        • Billing Account ID
        • Billing Account Name
        • Sub Account ID
        • Sub Account Name
      • Billing
        • Billing Currency
        • Consumed Unit
      • Charge
        • Charge Category
        • Charge Description
        • Charge Frequency
      • Commitment Discount
        • Commitment Discount Category
        • Commitment Discount ID
        • Commitment Discount Name
        • Commitment Discount Type
      • Charge Origination
        • Invoice Issuer
        • Provider
        • Publisher
      • Pricing
        • Pricing Category
        • Pricing Unit
      • Resource
        • Resource Name
        • Resource Type
      • Service
        • Service Category
        • Service Name
      • SKU
        • SKU ID
        • SKU Price ID

    • Rule-Based

      Rule-based dimensions are specific to your organization.

    • Tags

      Tags are specific to your organization. Contact Flexera Support to add new tags.

    To remove the filter selections, click the Edit Widget button and then click Remove filter selection. To delete all the dimensions that you added, click Delete all dimensions. Hover over the button icon to view the button name.

    To delete a specific dimension, click the Delete <Dimension Name> button next to the dimension name that you added. Hover over the button icon to view the button name.

  • Metrics in Billing Explorer—Enables you to view different cost and usage values such as list cost, billed cost, effective cost, modified billed cost, modified effective cost, billed cost margin, billed cost margin percentage, effective cost margin, effective cost margin percentage, pricing quantity, and consumed quantity.

    Configure the metrics

    You can configure the following metrics in the Table View by clicking the three dots icon:

    • List Cost—The cost calculated by multiplying the List Unit Price by the corresponding Pricing Quantity.

    • Billed Cost—The actual amount that your organization is charged for cloud services, as shown on your invoice for a specific billing period. This value includes all discounts that have been applied by your cloud provider, but it does not amortize any upfront or recurring commitment purchases (such as Reserved Instances or Savings Plans) over multiple months.

    • Effective Cost—The total cost of your cloud usage after all discounts have been applied, and after any upfront or recurring commitment purchases (such as Reserved Instances or Savings Plans) have been amortized over the period they cover.

    • Modified Bill Cost—This is the Billed Cost after applying any billing rules, such as markups, markdowns, upcharges, discounts, or support charges.

    • Modified Effective Cost—This is the Effective Cost after applying any billing rules, such as markups, markdowns, upcharges, discounts, or support charges.

    • Billed Cost Margin—The difference between the Modified Billed Cost and the Billed Cost.

    • Billed Cost Margin Percentage—The percentage margin between the Modified Billed Cost and the Billed Cost.

    • Effective Cost Margin—The difference between the Modified Effective Cost and the Effective Cost.

    • Effective Cost Margin Percentage—The percentage margin between the Modified Effective Cost and the Effective Cost.

    • Pricing Quantity—The amount of usage that is multiplied by the list unit price to calculate the list cost, and is determined according to the cloud provider's pricing model.

    • Consumed Quantity—The actual amount of a resource or service used during the billing period, as measured by the cloud provider.

    You can show and hide the metrics in the Billing Explorer based on the spend that you want to see by clicking Show and Hide, respectively.

  • Group By Filter—Enables you to pivot and sum costs based on a number of dimensions.

    Group By criteria options

    To get to the level of detail that is necessary to compare costs, you can select up to 10 criteria in the Group By function from the following options:

    • Billing Centers

      • Billing Centers

    • FOCUS

      • Location
        • Availability Zone
        • Region ID
      • Profile
        • Bill Source
        • Billing Profile ID
        • Billing Profile Name
        • Customer Name
        • Customer Tenant ID
        • Partner Name
        • Partner Tenant ID
      • Account
        • Billing Account ID
        • Billing Account Name
        • Sub Account ID
        • Sub Account Name
      • Billing
        • Billing Currency
        • Consumed Unit
      • Charge
        • Charge Category
        • Charge Description
        • Charge Frequency
      • Commitment Discount
        • Commitment Discount Category
        • Commitment Discount ID
        • Commitment Discount Name
        • Commitment Discount Type
      • Charge Origination
        • Invoice Issuer
        • Provider
        • Publisher
      • Pricing
        • Pricing Category
        • Pricing Unit
      • Resource
        • Resource Name
        • Resource Type
      • Service
        • Service Category
        • Service Name
      • SKU
        • SKU ID
        • SKU Price ID

    • Rule-Based

      Rule-based dimensions are specific to your organization.

    • Tags

      Tags are specific to your organization. Contact Flexera Support to add new tags.

    After you select the appropriate Group By criteria, the data table begins to populate with the cost from the selected criteria. The Group By column is ordered based on the criteria you select first. You can move the Group By criteria to the left side or right side to group the data to your liking.

  • Search Box Filter in Billing Explorer—Enables you to scale down the data to your exact specifications. You can search the group by filter criteria by using the search box or the filter in each column. You can also sort the columns.

  • Expand/Collapse Group By Rows—Enables you to hide or show the detail rows based on the Group By criteria.

    Expand/Collapse rows

    The data table's default view shows all the rows, as defined by the Group By criteria, in an expanded state. You can click an individual row to collapse or expand that row. Also, once you add two or more Group By criteria, you can choose to collapse or expand all the rows in the data table by hovering over Group By column and clicking the menu icon. In the menu, choose Expand All Row Groups or Collapse All Row Groups to control the display of rows based on the Group By criteria.

  • Percent Change Indicators in Billing Explorer—Displays how a particular cost grouping is changing.

    Indicators

    The percent change arrows show trends from month to month. To display the arrows, click the three dots icon in the Table View and click Show Percent Change. This selection enables the color-coded up and down arrows to reflect the percent change from the previous month.

    ColorPercent Change
    Dark GreenThe decrease is 30% or more.
    Light GreenThe decrease is more than 5% and less than 30%.
    GrayThe increase or decrease is 5% or les.
    OrangeThe increase is more than 5% and less than 30%.
    RedThe increase is 30% or more.

  • Dimension Names in Billing Explorer—Enables you to see the names of the dimensions (such as Billing Account ID, Adjustment Name, Provider) in the Table View. Click the three dots icon in the Table View and select Show Dimension Names.

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Your user settings are saved in the backend and are available the next time you log in to Flexera One, whether you are using the same or a different device or browser. These settings include table column visibility, table column order, table column filter state, table column sort state, table column width, table column pinning, dashboard settings, and dashboards and billing explorer widget settings.

Exporting Billing Explorer Data​

After you select the appropriate criteria, such as Date Selector, Group By, and Filters, you can export the data to a .csv or .xlsx file.

To export the Billing Explorer data:

  1. Click the Export CSV or XLSX button:

  2. Choose CSV or XLSX to set the file format and begin the download.

The exported file shows all columns and dates that were selected as part of that criteria, and the filters also apply.