Overview of Cloud Billing access control

Cloud Billing lets you control which users have administrative and cost viewing permissions for specified resources by setting Cloud Identity and Access Management (Cloud IAM) policies on the resources.

To grant or limit access to Cloud Billing, you can set a Cloud IAM policy at the organization level, the Cloud Billing account level, and/or the project level. Google Cloud resources inherit the Cloud IAM policies of their parent node, which means you can set a policy at the organization level to apply it to all the Cloud Billing accounts, projects, and resources in the organization.

You can control viewing permissions at different levels for different users or roles by setting access permissions at the Cloud Billing account or project level. To grant permission to a user to view the costs of all projects under a Cloud Billing account, give the user permission to view the costs for a Cloud Billing account (billing.accounts.getSpendingInformation). To grant permission to a user to view the costs for a specific project, give the user view permissions for individual projects (billing.resourceCosts.get).

Overview of Cloud Billing roles in Cloud IAM

You don't directly give users permissions; instead, you grant them roles, which have one or more permissions bundled within them.

You can grant one or more roles on the same resource.

The following predefined Cloud Billing Cloud IAM roles are designed to allow you to use access control to enforce separation of duties:

Role	Purpose	Level	Use Case
Billing Account Creator (roles/billing.creator)	Create new self-serve (online) billing accounts.	Organization	Use this role for initial billing setup or to allow creation of additional billing accounts. Users must have this role to sign up for Google Cloud with a credit card using their corporate identity. Tip: Minimize the number of users who have this role to help prevent proliferation of untracked cloud spend in your organization.
Billing Account Administrator (roles/billing.admin)	Manage billing accounts (but not create them).	Organization or billing account.	This role is an owner role for a billing account. Use it to manage payment instruments, configure billing exports, view cost information, link and unlink projects and manage other user roles on the billing account.
Billing Account User (roles/billing.user)	Link projects to billing accounts.	Organization or billing account.	This role has very restricted permissions, so you can grant it broadly, typically in combination with Project Creator. These two roles allow a user to create new projects linked to the billing account on which the role is granted.
Billing Account Viewer (roles/billing.viewer)	View billing account cost information and transactions.	Organization or billing account.	Billing Account Viewer access would usually be granted to finance teams, it provides access to spend information, but does not confer the right to link or unlink projects or otherwise manage the properties of the billing account.
Project Billing Manager (roles/billing.projectManager)	Link/unlink the project to/from a billing account.	Organization, folder, or project.	This role allows a user to attach the project to the billing account, but does not grant any rights over resources. Project Owners can use this role to allow someone else to manage the billing for the project without granting them resource access.

Note: Other legacy roles (such as Project Owner) also confer some Cloud Billing permissions. The Project Owner role is a superset of Project Billing Manager.

The following table lists the details of the predefined Cloud IAM Billing roles, including the permissions bundled within each role.

Role	Title	Description	Permissions	Lowest resource
roles/billing.admin	Billing Account Administrator	Provides access to see and manage all aspects of billing accounts.	billing.accounts.close billing.accounts.get billing.accounts.getIamPolicy billing.accounts.getPaymentInfo billing.accounts.getSpendingInformation billing.accounts.getUsageExportSpec billing.accounts.list billing.accounts.move billing.accounts.redeemPromotion billing.accounts.removeFromOrganization billing.accounts.reopen billing.accounts.setIamPolicy billing.accounts.update billing.accounts.updatePaymentInfo billing.accounts.updateUsageExportSpec billing.budgets.* billing.credits.* billing.resourceAssociations.* billing.subscriptions.* cloudnotifications.* logging.logEntries.list logging.logServiceIndexes.* logging.logServices.* logging.logs.list logging.privateLogEntries.* resourcemanager.projects.createBillingAssignment resourcemanager.projects.deleteBillingAssignment	Billing Account
roles/billing.creator	Billing Account Creator	Provides access to create billing accounts.	billing.accounts.create resourcemanager.organizations.get	Project
roles/billing.projectManager	Project Billing Manager	Provides access to assign a project's billing account or disable its billing.	resourcemanager.projects.createBillingAssignment resourcemanager.projects.deleteBillingAssignment	Project
roles/billing.user	Billing Account User	Provides access to associate projects with billing accounts.	billing.accounts.get billing.accounts.getIamPolicy billing.accounts.list billing.accounts.redeemPromotion billing.credits.* billing.resourceAssociations.create	Billing Account
roles/billing.viewer	Billing Account Viewer	View billing account cost information and transactions.	billing.accounts.get billing.accounts.getIamPolicy billing.accounts.getPaymentInfo billing.accounts.getSpendingInformation billing.accounts.getUsageExportSpec billing.accounts.list billing.budgets.get billing.budgets.list billing.credits.* billing.resourceAssociations.list billing.subscriptions.get billing.subscriptions.list	Organization Billing Account

Relationships between organizations, projects, Cloud Billing accounts, and payments profiles

Two types of relationships govern the interactions between organizations, Cloud Billing accounts, and projects: ownership and payment linkage.

• Ownership refers to Cloud IAM permission inheritance.
• Payment linkages define which Cloud Billing account pays for a given project.

The following diagram shows the relationship of ownership and payment linkages for a sample organization.

In the diagram, the organization has ownership over Projects 1, 2, and 3, meaning that it is the Cloud IAM permissions parent of the three projects.

The Cloud Billing account is linked to Projects 1, 2, and 3, meaning that it pays for costs incurred by the three projects.

The Cloud Billing account is also linked to a Google payments profile, which stores information like name, address, and payment methods.

Note: Although you link Cloud Billing accounts to projects, Cloud Billing accounts are not parents of projects in an Cloud IAM sense, and therefore projects don't inherit permissions from the Cloud Billing account they are linked to.

In this example, any users who are granted Cloud IAM billing roles on the organization also have those roles on the Cloud Billing account or the projects.

Cloud Billing access control examples

Combine Cloud IAM roles as follows to meet the needs of a variety of scenarios.

Scenario: Small-to-medium enterprise with a preference for centralized control.
User type	Billing Cloud IAM roles	Billing activities
CEO	Billing Account Administrator	Manage payment instrument. View and approve invoices.
CTO	Billing Account Administrator Project Creator	Set budget alerts. View spend. Create new billable projects.
Development teams	None	None

Scenario: Small-to-medium enterprise with a preference for delegated authority.
User type	Billing Cloud IAM roles	Billing activities
CEO	Billing Account Administrator	Manage payment instrument. Delegate authority.
CFO	Billing Account Administrator	Set budget alerts. View spend.
Accounts payable	Billing Account Viewer	View and approve invoices.
Development teams	Billing Account User Project Creator	Create new billable projects.

Scenario: Separate financial planning & procurement functions
User type	Billing Cloud IAM roles	Billing activities
Procurement or Central IT	Billing Account Administrator	Manage payment instrument. Set budget alerts. Communicate spend to development teams.
Financial planning	Billing Account Viewer	View billing reports. Process exports. Communicate with CxO.
Accounts payable	Billing Account Viewer	Approve invoices.
Development teams	Billing Account User Project Creator	Create new billable projects.

Scenario: Development agency
User type	Billing Cloud IAM roles	Billing activities
CEO	Billing Account Administrator	Manage payment instrument. Delegate authority.
CFO	Billing Account Administrator	Set budget alerts. View spend. Approve invoices.
Project lead	Billing Account User Project Creator	Create new billable projects.
Project development team	None	Develop within existing projects.
Client	Project Billing Manager	Take payment ownership of the project when it is completed.

Update Cloud Billing permissions

To add or remove Cloud Billing permissions:

1. Sign in to the Google Cloud Console.

   SIGN IN TO Cloud Console

2. Open the Cloud Console Navigation menu , and then select Billing.

   If you have more than one Cloud Billing account, do one of the following:

   • To manage Cloud Billing for the current project, select Go to linked billing account.
   • To locate a different Cloud Billing account, select Manage billing accounts and then choose the account that you want to manage.

3. In the Billing navigation menu, click Account management.

4. Use the Permissions panel to edit permissions for the selected Cloud Billing account. If the panel isn't already visible, click SHOW INFO PANEL to open it.

The Permissions panel is organized by role, with members listed in each role. For example, in your permissions panel, you might see

• Billing Account Administrator (2 members)
• Billing Account User (6 members)
• Billing Account Viewer (10 members)

You can assign the same member to more than one role.

To view the list of members for a corresponding role, click the role name to expand (or collapse) the list of members assigned to that role.

To find a specific member and see which roles are assigned to that member, use the Search members filter.

To update Cloud Billing permissions, in the Permissions panel, do any of the following:

• To add new members and assign permissions:

  1. Click Add members.
  2. In the New members field, enter one or more email addresses for the members you want to add. You can add individuals, service accounts, or Google Groups as members.
  3. Select a permission for the member(s) from Select a role.
  4. Set any conditions on the role (optional).
  5. If needed, you can Add another role to assign additional permissions for the member(s).
  6. When done, click Save.

• To edit a member's billing permissions:

  1. Use the Search members filter to locate a specific member or role.
  2. In the list, locate the member you want to edit.

  3. In the member's row, click Edit .

     The Edit permissions panel opens, specific to the selected member and resource (Cloud Billing Aacount) you are viewing.

  4. In the Edit permissions panel, add, edit, and delete roles for the selected member and resource.

  5. When done, click Save.

• To remove a member from a role's list of members:

  1. Use the Search members filter to locate a specific member or role.
  2. In the list, locate the member you want to remove from that role.
  3. In the member's row, click Delete .

  4. You will be prompted to confirm your action.

     Note: When you delete a member from a role's list of members, the member is only removed from that specific role, but not from other roles where the member is assigned.

Related topics

• Cloud Billing API Access Control
• Granting, Changing, and Revoking Access to project Members in the Cloud IAM documentation
• Create Custom Roles for Cloud Billing