[Proposal] Add a dimensions for grouping billing accounts

[udam-f2]

Type

Dimension

Proposed Change

FOCUS 0.5 introduces a sub account and a billing account constructs. There aren't any ways to group a set of billing accounts that serve a similar purpose. @riley Jenkins & @irena Jurica have brought up the need for a higher level dimension that groups a bunch of the invoice generating billing accounts together. Discuss and add as needed.

Context / Supporting information

Some cloud providers already have this grouping

[udam-f2]

@ijurica Should we close this out? and create new if we still think this is needed?

[flanakin]

Can we get some examples? I'm not sure what this is asking for.

[ijurica]

In the 0.5 stage, we introduced two resource grouping constructs: billing account and subaccount. This dimension was intended to represent the top-level element, i.e. the root account (tenant, tenancy, organization, etc.). The root account would serve as the overarching parent, though not necessarily in a direct manner, for both subaccounts and billing accounts.

The top-level (root) element in the AccountHierarchy, mentioned in https://github.com/FinOps-Open-Cost-and-Usage-Spec/FOCUS_Spec/issues/301 would probably provide the same information.

[rileyjenk]

The overall problem is that billing account and sub account are defined as receiving an invoice vs not, in the appendix...however a linked account in AWS can receive its own invoice. This is usually done in a multi national company where different entities are invoiced for specific geos. For example in AWS you can have a master payer account that has linked accounts, where those linked accounts generate their own invoices, yet are part of the master payer account.

[flanakin]

@rileyjenk In that case, it sounds like the point of this column would be for the master payer account. Because if a linked account is generating the invoice, then that's what should be specified for the BillingAccountId/Name.

[shawnalpay]

@udam-f2 Now that we have #618, can we close this issue?

[jpradocueva]

Comments from Members' call on Oct 31:

Analysis: Addresses the need for dimensions to support grouping by billing accounts, likely covered by hierarchical allocation in work item #618. Agreements: Shawn will leave a note on the PR to close #102, as the concept is incorporated within #618.