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Understand cost details fields

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This document describes the cost details (formerly known as usage details) fields found in files from using Azure portal download, Exports from Cost Management, or the Cost Details API. For more information about cost details best practices, see Choose a cost details solution.

Migration to new cost details formats

If you're using an older cost details solution and want to migrate to Exports or the Cost Details API, read the following articles.

Note

All Azure Enterprise Reporting APIs are retired. You should Migrate to Microsoft Cost Management APIs as soon as possible.

List of fields and descriptions

The following table describes the important terms used in the latest version of the cost details file. The list covers pay-as-you-go (also called Microsoft Online Services Program), Enterprise Agreement (EA), Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA), and Microsoft Partner Agreement (MPA) accounts.

MPA accounts have all MCA terms, in addition to the MPA terms, as described in the following table. To identify what account type you are, see supported Microsoft Azure offers.

Term Account type Description
AccountName EA, pay-as-you-go Display name of the EA enrollment account or pay-as-you-go billing account.
AccountOwnerId¹ EA, pay-as-you-go Unique identifier for the EA enrollment account or pay-as-you-go billing account.
AdditionalInfo¹ All Service-specific metadata. For example, an image type for a virtual machine.
AvailabilityZone External account Valid only for cost data obtained from the cross-cloud connector. The field displays the availability zone in which the AWS service is deployed.
BenefitId¹ EA, MCA Unique identifier for the purchased savings plan instance.
BenefitName EA, MCA Unique identifier for the purchased savings plan instance.
BillingAccountId¹ All Unique identifier for the root billing account.
BillingAccountName All Name of the billing account.
BillingCurrency All Currency associated with the billing account.
BillingCurrencyCode All See BillingCurrency.
BillingPeriod EA, pay-as-you-go The billing period of the charge.
BillingPeriodEndDate All The end date of the billing period.
BillingPeriodStartDate All The start date of the billing period.
BillingProfileId¹ All Unique identifier of the EA enrollment, pay-as-you-go subscription, MCA billing profile, or AWS⁴ consolidated account.
BillingProfileName All Name of the EA enrollment, pay-as-you-go subscription, MCA billing profile, or AWS⁴ consolidated account.
ChargeType All Indicates whether the charge represents usage (Usage), a purchase (Purchase), or a refund (Refund).
ConsumedService All Name of the service the charge is associated with.
CostCenter¹ EA, MCA The cost center defined for the subscription for tracking costs (only available in open billing periods for MCA accounts).
Cost EA, pay-as-you-go See CostInBillingCurrency.
CostAllocationRuleName EA, MCA Name of the Cost Allocation rule that's applicable to the record.
CostInBillingCurrency EA, MCA Cost of the charge in the billing currency before credits or taxes.
CostInPricingCurrency MCA Cost of the charge in the pricing currency before credits or taxes.
Currency EA, pay-as-you-go See BillingCurrency.
CustomerName MPA Name of the Microsoft Entra tenant for the customer's subscription.
CustomerTenantId MPA Identifier of the Microsoft Entra tenant of the customer's subscription.
Date¹ All The usage or purchase date of the charge.
EffectivePrice² ³ All The price for a given product or service that represents the actual rate that you end up paying per unit.
ExchangeRateDate MCA Date the exchange rate was established.
ExchangeRatePricingToBilling MCA Exchange rate used to convert the cost in the pricing currency to the billing currency.
Frequency All Indicates whether a charge is expected to repeat. Charges can either happen once (OneTime), repeat on a monthly or yearly basis (Recurring), or be based on usage (UsageBased).
InvoiceId pay-as-you-go, MCA The unique document ID listed on the invoice PDF.
InvoiceSection MCA See InvoiceSectionName.
InvoiceSectionId¹ EA, MCA Unique identifier for the EA department or MCA invoice section.
InvoiceSectionName EA, MCA Name of the EA department or MCA invoice section.
IsAzureCreditEligible All Indicates if the charge is eligible to be paid for using Azure credits (Values: True or False).
Location MCA The normalized location used to resolve inconsistencies in region names sent by different Azure Resource Providers (RPs). The normalized location is based strictly on the resource location sent by RPs in usage data and is programmatically normalized to mitigate inconsistencies. Purchases and Marketplace usage might be shown as blank or unassigned. For example, US East.
MeterCategory All Name of the classification category for the meter. For example, Cloud services and Networking. Purchases and Marketplace usage might be shown as blank or unassigned.
MeterId¹ All The unique identifier for the meter.
MeterName All The name of the meter. Purchases and Marketplace usage might be shown as blank or unassigned.
MeterRegion All The name of the Azure region associated with the meter. It generally aligns with the resource location, except for certain global meters that are shared across regions. In such cases, the meter region indicates the primary region of the meter.
Note: The meter is used to track the usage of specific services or resources, mainly for billing purposes. Each Azure service, resource, and region have its own billing meter ID that precisely reflects how its consumption and price are calculated.
MeterSubCategory All Name of the meter subclassification category. Purchases and Marketplace usage might be shown as blank or unassigned.
OfferId¹ EA, pay-as-you-go Name of the Azure offer, which is the type of Azure subscription that you have. For more information, see supported Microsoft Azure offer details.
pay-as-you-goPrice² ³ All The market price, also referred to as retail or list price, for a given product or service. For more information, see Pricing behavior in cost details.
PartnerEarnedCreditApplied MPA Indicates whether the partner earned credit was applied.
PartnerEarnedCreditRate MPA Rate of discount applied if there's a partner earned credit (PEC), based on partner admin link access.
PartnerName MPA Name of the partner Microsoft Entra tenant.
PartnerTenantId MPA Identifier for the partner's Microsoft Entra tenant.
PartNumber¹ EA, pay-as-you-go Identifier used to get specific meter pricing.
PlanName EA, pay-as-you-go Marketplace plan name.
PreviousInvoiceId MCA Reference to an original invoice if the line item is a refund.
PricingCurrency MCA Currency used when rating based on negotiated prices.
PricingModel All Identifier that indicates how the meter is priced. (Values: OnDemand, Reservation, Spot, and SavingsPlan)
Product All Name of the product.
ProductId¹ MCA Unique identifier for the product.
ProductOrderId All Unique identifier for the product order.
ProductOrderName All Unique name for the product order.
Provider MCA Identifier for product category or Line of Business. For example, Azure, Microsoft 365, and AWS⁴.
PublisherId MCA The ID of the publisher. It's only available after the invoice is generated.
PublisherName All The name of the publisher. For first-party services, the value should be listed as Microsoft or Microsoft Corporation.
PublisherType All Supported values: Microsoft, Azure, AWS⁴, Marketplace. For MCA accounts, the value can be Microsoft for first party charges and Marketplace for third party charges. For EA and pay-as-you-go accounts, the value is Azure.
Quantity³ All The number of units used by the given product or service for a given day.
ResellerName MPA The name of the reseller associated with the subscription.
ResellerMpnId MPA ID for the reseller associated with the subscription.
ReservationId¹ EA, MCA Unique identifier for the purchased reservation instance.
ReservationName EA, MCA Name of the purchased reservation instance.
ResourceGroup All Name of the resource group the resource is in. Not all charges come from resources deployed to resource groups. Charges that don't have a resource group are shown as null or empty, Others, or Not applicable.
ResourceId¹ All Unique identifier of the Azure Resource Manager resource.
ResourceLocation¹ All The Azure region where the resource is deployed, also referred to as the datacenter location where the resource is running. For an example using Virtual Machines, see What's the difference between MeterRegion and ResourceLocation.
ResourceName EA, pay-as-you-go Name of the resource. Not all charges come from deployed resources. Charges that don't have a resource type are shown as null/empty, Others , or Not applicable.
ResourceType MCA Type of resource instance. Not all charges come from deployed resources. Charges that don't have a resource type are shown as null/empty, Others , or Not applicable.
RoundingAdjustment EA, MCA Rounding adjustment represents the quantization that occurs during cost calculation. When the calculated costs are converted to the invoiced total, small rounding errors can occur. The rounding errors are represented as rounding adjustment to ensure that the costs shown in Cost Management align to the invoice. For more information, see Rounding adjustment details.
ServiceFamily MCA Service family that the service belongs to.
ServiceInfo1 All Service-specific metadata.
ServiceInfo2 All Legacy field with optional service-specific metadata.
ServicePeriodEndDate MCA The end date of the rating period that defined and locked pricing for the consumed or purchased service.
ServicePeriodStartDate MCA The start date of the rating period that defined and locked pricing for the consumed or purchased service.
SubscriptionId¹ All Unique identifier for the Azure subscription.
SubscriptionName All Name of the Azure subscription.
Tags¹ All Tags assigned to the resource. Doesn't include resource group tags. Can be used to group or distribute costs for internal chargeback. For more information, see Organize your Azure resources with tags.
Term All Displays the term for the validity of the offer. For example: For reserved instances, it displays 12 months as the Term. For one-time purchases or recurring purchases, Term is one month (SaaS, Marketplace Support). Not applicable for Azure consumption.
UnitOfMeasure All The unit of measure for billing for the service. For example, compute services are billed per hour.
UnitPrice² ³ All The price for a given product or service inclusive of any negotiated discount that you might have on top of the market price (PayG price column) for your contract. For more information, see Pricing behavior in cost details.

¹ Fields used to build a unique ID for a single cost record. Every record in your cost details file should be considered unique.

² For MCA customers, prices are shown in the pricing currency in the Actual Cost and Amortized Cost reports. In contrast, for EA customers, the billing and pricing currencies are the same.

³ For more information about pricing terms and definitions, see Pricing behavior in cost details.

⁴ The Connector for AWS in the Cost Management service retires on March 31, 2025. Users should consider alternative solutions for AWS cost management reporting. On March 31, 2024, Azure will disable the ability to add new Connectors for AWS for all customers. For more information, see Retire your Amazon Web Services (AWS) connector.

The cost details file itself doesn’t uniquely identify individual records with an ID. Instead, you can use fields in the file flagged with ¹ to create a unique ID yourself.

Some fields might differ in casing and spacing between account types. Older versions of pay-as-you-go cost details files have separate sections for the statement and daily cost.

Part numbers in the EA invoice are also in the cost and usage file

Records in cost and usage file and other cost management experiences, such as cost analysis, include part numbers matching them with the part numbers in the EA invoice. The part numbers in the cost and usage file are shown only for EA customers.

  • Part numbers are shown for all usage records.
  • Part numbers are shown for all purchase and refund records.

Part numbers are the same in the invoice and cost and usage file details for all charge types, excluding Azure Savings Plan and prepurchase reservations. They currently don't have a part number in the cost and usage details file.

Reconcile charges in the cost and usage details file

Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) customers can use the following information to reconcile charges between billing and pricing currencies.

  1. Manually calculate the CostInPricingCurrency by: (EffectivePrice) * (Quantity)

  2. Convert the calculated CostInPricingCurrency to the CostInBillingCurrency by: (CalculatedCostinPricingCurrency) * (ExchangeRatePricingToBilling)

  3. Summarize the values that you calculated for CostInBillingCurrency and compare them to the invoice.

Enterprise Agreement (EA) customers can reconcile their charges using the following computation:

Manually calculate the cost by multiplying the Effective Price by the Quantity:

Cost = (EffectivePrice) * (Quantity)

Reconcile reservation purchases with usage records

Every reservation purchase and usage record has two associated IDs: ReservationId and ProductOrderId.

  • Reservation purchase records (PricingModel = Reservation, ChargeType = Purchase):
    • The records carry the purchase order ID as ProductOrderId.
    • Additionally, they stamp the same purchase order ID as ReservationId.
  • Reservation usage records (PricingModel = Reservation, ChargeType = Usage/UnusedReservation):
    • Like purchase records, the usage records also carry the purchase order ID as ProductOrderId.
    • However, the ReservationId can differ, as it gets attributed to the resources that benefited from the reservation.
    • Keep in mind that actions such as split, merge, partial refund, or exchange can create new reservations.

Although the ReservationId itself might differ, it's still part of the same order. Therefore, the ProductOrderId can be effectively used to associate the purchase with the usage record, facilitating reconciliation between reservation purchases and usage.

Record type ReservationId ProductOrderId
Reservation purchase record (actual cost) Purchase order ID Purchase order ID
Reservation usage record (amortized and actual cost) Differing reservation ID Purchase order ID

For more information, see Manage Reservations for Azure resources.

Identify EA charges for included quantity

Included quantity (IQ) refers to the amount of a metered resource that can be consumed without incurring any extra cost in an Enterprise Agreement. When dealing with IQ, consider the following points:

Meter characteristics - Meters associated with IQ exhibit specific traits in the cost file because the meters allow consumption without any extra charges. In the cost file, a meter with IQ has:

  • ChargeType: Usage, PricingModel: OnDemand.
  • Unit price, effective price, and Cost set to 0, because you don't get billed for their consumption.
  • Quantity isn't zero. It shows the actual consumption of the meter.
  • However, the PayG (pay-as-you-go) price still shows the retail price, which is nonzero.

Rounding adjustment details

Why do we have rounding adjustment?

Every financial system involves rounding logic, which can cause some variance. Invoices aggregate monthly costs at the meter level, with costs rounded depending on the currency. In contrast, the cost file contains costs at the resource instance level with higher precision. This difference results in a variance in the total cost between the invoice and the cost file. The rounding adjustment is provided in the cost file at an aggregated level whenever the invoice is ready, ensuring that the total costs in both files match.

Note: Two separate rounding adjustments are provided—one for first-party records and the other for marketplace records. These adjustments aren't available during an open month and become visible when the month closes and the invoice is generated.

Customers can spread the rounding adjustment over finer details like individual resources, resource groups, or entire subscriptions. You can use a weighted average or use similar techniques.

Rounding adjustment record in the cost file

The rounding adjustment record is available in the cost file at the Billing Profile scope for Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) or at the Enrollment scope for Enterprise Agreement (EA). Since it’s an aggregated value at the invoice level, there’s no lower-scope-level information for the record. The following fields are valid for a rounding adjustment record:

  • BillingAccountId
  • BillingAccountName
  • BillingPeriodStartDate
  • BillingPeriodEndDate
  • BillingProfileId
  • BillingProfileName

MeterCategory, MeterSubCategory, and ChargeType fields have the value as RoundingAdjustment.

Illustration of rounding adjustment

Suppose you have two resources in your subscription: A and B. Resource A costs $0.1234 per hour and resource B costs $0.5678 per hour. You use both resources for 10 hours in a day, so the total cost for each resource is:

  • Resource A: $0.1234 x 10 = $1.234
  • Resource B: $0.5678 x 10 = $5.678

The total cost for the day is $1.234 + $5.678 = $6.912.

However, when the invoice is generated, the costs are rounded to two decimal places, so the invoice shows:

  • Resource A: $1.23
  • Resource B: $5.68
  • Total: $6.91

The difference between the invoice total and the actual total is $0.002, which is the rounding adjustment. To ensure Cost Management costs match the invoice, an amount of -$0.002 is shown in the cost file as the rounding adjustment after the invoice generation.

List of terms from older APIs

The following table maps terms used in older APIs to the new terms. Refer to the previous table for descriptions.

Old term New term
ConsumedQuantity Quantity
IncludedQuantity N/A
InstanceId ResourceId
Rate EffectivePrice
Unit UnitOfMeasure
UsageDate Date
UsageEnd Date
UsageStart Date

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