View and download the cost details of your invoice or statement

Overview

The cost table report, available in the Google Cloud Console, is a powerful, easy to use cost management tool to understand the costs that reconcile to your invoice. The report gives you a detailed, tabular view of your monthly costs for a given invoice or statement (by invoice month). The cost table report total matches your invoice or statement total and generally includes all costs incurred during a given calendar month.

The cost table report includes project-level cost details from your invoices and statements, including your tax costs broken out by project. It also includes additional details you might need, such as service IDs, SKU IDs, and project numbers.

The report view is customizable and downloadable to CSV.

Beginning with your January 2021 invoice or statement (available in February 2021), to simplify the document format, we removed all cost details from the invoices and statements you receive (both PDF and CSV), including product-level costs and costs by subaccounts (for Resellers). The invoices and statements contain your company information (such as your billing address, your Cloud Billing account ID, and your payment terms), your cost totals, taxes, and remittance instructions. In place of providing the cost details, your invoice provides a link to the Cost table report for the Cloud Billing account.

In the cost table report, we use the term invoice month to refer to the time period that an invoice or statement covers. The detailed usage costs included for an invoice month might differ slightly from the detailed usage costs for a calendar month. For more details about these differences, see How costs are calculated for an invoice month.

Permissions required to access the cost table report

To view the cost table report for your Cloud Billing account, you need to be assigned to one of the following Cloud Billing IAM roles on your Cloud Billing account:

  • Billing Account Administrator
  • Billing Account Costs Manager
  • Billing Account Viewer

Specifically, to access the cost table report, you must have the following permission on your Cloud Billing account:

  • billing.accounts.getSpendingInformation

If someone else manages your Cloud Billing account, you may not have the necessary billing permissions. If this is the case and you think you should be able to view costs for your Cloud Billing account, contact the person in your organization who manages your Cloud Billing account.

For more information about billing permissions, see:

Accessing the report

To view the cost table report for your Cloud Billing account, for an invoice month:

  1. Sign in to the Google Cloud Console.

    Sign in to Cloud Console

  2. Open the 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 choose the account for which you'd like to see reports.

  3. From the Billing navigation menu, select Cost table.

By default, when you first access the report, you see the data for the most recent complete month, grouped by Project -> Service -> SKU, without any filtering of the data, and including all the applicable columns of data.

Starting with the September 2020 invoice month, the cost table report includes invoice or statement header information displayed before the cost table, and the selected invoice month is appended with the invoice or statement number. If you are a Reseller, the invoice header information only displays on the parent Cloud Billing account, and is not displayed when viewing the report for one of your Cloud Billing subaccounts.

Example of the default cost table report view.
Figure 1: Example of the default cost table report view, grouped by Project -> Service -> SKU, without any filtering of the data, and including invoice header information and all the applicable columns of data.

How to read the cost table

The cost table shows you a detailed breakdown of all of your costs and credits for the invoice month.

Two different types of table views are available: nested table and flat table.

Nested table view

Example of a nested cost table report.
Figure 2 - Nested table view: Example of the cost table report grouped by Custom grouping, setting the custom group by dimensions to use Labels and SKU ID, and with the env:dev label row expanded to view the charges by SKUs tagged with that label key.

In the nested table view:

  • A hierarchical, tree-structured view of your cost data is provided, so you can analyze your billing data online in the cost table report.

  • The first column in the table groups the cost details by the selected option. For example, the Project -> Service -> SKU group by option generates a single column called Project name / Service description / SKU description. If you configure a Custom grouping group by option, the first column of the table is titled Custom grouping hierarchy.

  • If any of your projects have been deleted or moved to a different Cloud Billing account, the project associated with the costs is identified only by the Project number.

  • Each row in the nested table displays hierarchical cost data representing the costs by the grouping level (for example, total costs for a project, or for a service).

  • You can expand or collapse the hierarchical cost data in each of the grouped rows to analyze the cost breakdown of the grouped total.

  • Starting with your September 2020 invoice month, your tax costs are broken out by each project. To view your tax costs by project in the nested table view, you must use or configure a Group by option with Project as the first grouping dimension. For example, group by Project -> Service -> SKU.

  • Below the table is a footer that displays the totals of any taxes (for each tax type), invoice corrections/billing modifications, and rounding errors (if applicable to your Cloud Billing account), as well as the total for the selected invoice month. This total matches your invoice or statement total for the selected document.

Flat table view

Example of a flat cost table report.
Figure 3 - Flat table view: Example of the cost table report with no grouping option selected, and a few columns deselected for display (such as billing account name and billing account ID).

In the flat table view:

  • Each column contains one type of data (for example, Project name, Service description, or SKU description)

  • Each row with a Usage Cost type represents the total usage costs for a SKU, for a project.

    If you have selected a cost label key, each row represents the total usage costs for a label_key:label_value pair for a SKU, for a project.

  • If any of your projects have been deleted or moved to a different Cloud Billing account, the project associated with the costs is identified only by the Project number.

  • If applicable to your Cloud Billing account, the cost table also includes rows for earned discounts, taxes, rounding errors, and any invoice adjustments.

  • Starting with your September 2020 invoice month, your tax costs are broken out by each project. In the flat table view, if you have incurred tax costs, each row with a Tax Cost type represents the total tax costs for a SKU description (specific tax type and percentage), for a Project ID.

  • The final row in the flat cost table is the Total. This number matches your invoice or statement total for the invoice month.

  • Below the table is a footer that displays the totals of any taxes (for each tax type), invoice corrections/billing modifications, and rounding errors (if applicable to your Cloud Billing account), as well as the total for the selected invoice month. This total matches your invoice or statement total for the selected document.

Configure your report view to analyze your billing data

You have many options available to configure the online view of your cost table report. By default, when you first access the report, you see a nested table displaying the data for the most recent complete month, grouped by Project -> Service -> SKU, without any filtering of the data, and including all the applicable columns of data.

To customize your online report view, do any of the following:

  • Choose the invoice month: Use the dropdown above the table to select the Invoice month.

  • Set one or many filters: Select Filter table (if viewing a flat table) or Filter tree (if viewing a nested table) to create filters by column value (for example, Project ID : my-project-194-1378).

  • Set or change the cost label key:

    To select or change the cost label, open the Table configuration dialog, select a Label key, and then click Submit. When a label key is selected, the Labels column is automatically displayed in the table. For the items tagged by the selected cost label key, a label_key:label_value pair is displayed in the Labels column. You can also use the selected label key as a custom Group by grouping dimension.

    Learn more about creating and managing resource labels.

  • Set a group by option:

    Open the Table configuration dialog and choose one of the Group by settings to see a nested, hierarchical view of the cost data, grouped by the option selected. You can choose a pre-defined Group by option, or define a custom grouping. A nested table summarizes costs into expandable rows, letting you drill down to view the cost details of the rows.

    The group by options available are:

    • No grouping: Shows a flat cost table.

    • Project -> Service -> SKU: Shows a nested cost table and groups costs first by project, then service, then SKU. Click on the arrows ( or ) next to a row to expand and collapse the details of the row.

    • Service -> SKU: Shows a nested cost table and groups costs first by service, and then SKU. Click on the arrows ( or ) next to a row to expand and collapse the details of the row.

    • Custom grouping: Shows a nested cost table and groups costs by up to three grouping dimensions that you choose, nested hierarchically in the order you set for the selected dimensions. Click on the arrows ( or ) next to a row to expand and collapse the details of the row.

      Available grouping dimensions include Project ID, Service ID, and SKU ID. A Labels dimension is also available to select if you first set a Label key.

  • Select the columns to display: You can select or deselect the columns to show in the table using the Column display options selector. This setting also controls which columns download to CSV; that is, only the columns you specify are downloaded.

  • Change the sort order of the data: Click a column header to sort the data in the table by that column. You can toggle the sort between descending () and ascending () order.

Download report to CSV

You can download the cost table data to CSV using the Download CSV selector at the top, right of the table. The CSV report is a flat file, without any formatting, filtering, or grouping options, and downloads only the columns that you have selected to view. Starting with your September 2020 invoice or statement, the CSV file also includes the invoice or statement header information.

Notes about the data downloaded to CSV:

  • The filters () you set customize only your online report view, affecting the rows that are displayed. When you download to CSV, all rows of the invoice are downloaded.
  • The cost grouping option () you select is used for online analysis, creating a nested table view. When you download to CSV, a flat file is downloaded, including all rows of the invoice with data in individual (not nested) columns.
  • The column selector () allows you to customize both your online report view and which fields are downloaded. When you download to CSV, only the columns you specify are downloaded.
  • Starting with your September 2020 invoice or statement, the cost table report includes header information pulled from the generated document, including the billing account ID, total amount of the invoice or statement, and currency of the invoice or statement amount. This header information is downloaded to CSV.

Columns in the cost table

The following data is available in the cost table report (if applicable to your Cloud Billing account).

When you first load the online view of the cost table report, by default, some columns are not selected to display. You can choose which columns to view in the report by setting the column display options. Also, when you download the report to CSV, only the columns that you have selected to view are downloaded.

Cost Table Field Corresponding Invoice Field Description
Billing account name Account Name The name of the Cloud Billing account that the usage is associated with. (If you are a reseller, this might be the Cloud Billing Subaccount.)
Billing account ID Account ID The Cloud Billing account ID that the usage is associated with. (If you are a reseller, this might be the Cloud Billing Subaccount.)
Project name Source*
* N/A, starting with your November 2019 invoice		 The name of the project that generated the Cloud Billing data. If a project has been deleted or moved to a different Cloud Billing account, this value is blank, and the project is identified by the Project number.
Project ID N/A The ID of the project that generated the Cloud Billing data. If a project has been deleted or moved to a different Cloud Billing account, this value is blank, and the project is identified by the Project number.
Project number N/A An internally-generated, anonymized, unique identifier for the project. In your support cases and other customer communication, to protect your privacy, Google will refer to your projects by this project number. If you delete a project or move the project to a different Cloud Billing account, the Project name and Project ID are removed from the cost table report views, but the Project number will persist in your reports.

Note: When you first load the cost table report, by default, the Project number column is not selected to display. To view the Project number column in your cost table, select Project number in the column display options.

Service description Product The invoice description of the Google Cloud service or Google Maps Platform API that reported the Cloud Billing data. For example, Compute Engine.
Service ID N/A The ID of the Google Cloud service or Google Maps Platform API that reported the Cloud Billing data. For example, 6F81-5844-456A.
SKU description Resource Type The invoice description of the resource SKU used by the service. For example, N1 Predefined Instance Core running in Americas. SKU description also includes different tax types. For example, State sales tax (4.71%) or PST/QST/RST (9.975%).
SKU ID SKU ID The ID of the resource SKU used by the service. For example, 2E27-4F75-95CD.For the full list of SKUs, see Google Cloud SKUs.
Credit type N/A Describes the purpose or origin of the Credit ID. Credit types include discounts and promotions, such as:
  • Free tiers: Some services offer free resource usage up to specified limits. For these services, credits are applied to reflect the free tier usage.
  • Sustained use discounts: Sustained use discounts are automatic discounts that you get for running specific Compute Engine resources for a significant portion of the billing month.
  • Committed use discounts (resource based): Compute Engine offers the ability to purchase committed use contracts in return for deeply discounted prices for VM usage.
  • Committed use discounts (spend based): Spend-based committed use discounts provide a discount in exchange for your commitment to spend a minimum amount for a service in a particular region.
  • Spending based discounts (contractual): Discounts applied after a contractual spending threshold has been reached.
  • Subscriptions: Long term subscriptions to services that are purchased in exchange for discounts.
  • Reseller margin: For resellers only, this is the Reseller Program Discount credit earned on eligible items.
  • Promotions: Promotions are things like Google Cloud Free Trial and marketing campaign credits, or other grants to use Google Cloud. Promotional credits are typically considered a form of payment. When available, promotional credits are automatically applied to reduce your total bill.
  • Other: Any credits that do not fit into the discounts or promotional credits categories.

If the Credit type field is empty, then the product SKU is not associated with a credit.

Note: The first invoice month with Credit type data is July 2020, for usage that was recorded on or after July 8, 2020.
Credit ID N/A If present, indicates that a credit is associated with the product SKU. Credit ID values are either an alphanumeric unique identifier (for example, 12-b34-c56-d78), or a description of the credit type (such as Committed Usage Discount: CPU).

If the credit ID field is empty, then the product SKU is not associated with a credit.

Note: The first invoice month with Credit ID data is July 2020, for usage that was recorded on or after July 8, 2020.

When you first load the cost table report, by default, the Credit ID column is not selected to display. To view the Credit ID column in your cost table, select Credit ID in the column display options.
Credit name N/A The name of the credit associated with the product SKU. This is a human-readable description of an alphanumeric Credit ID. Examples include Free trial credit or Spend-based committed use discount.

Credit name values are only present for SKUs with an alphanumeric Credit ID. If the value of the Credit ID is a description of the credit type (such as Committed Usage Discount: CPU), then the Credit name field will be empty.

Note: The first invoice month with Credit name data is July 2020, for usage recorded on or after July 8, 2020.

When you first load the cost table report, by default, the Credit name column is not selected to display. To view the Credit name column in your cost table, select Credit name in the column display options.
Labels N/A The label_key:label_value pair. For example, environment:production. The label_key (for example, environment) is selected using the Label key selector accessible in the Table configuration dialog. The label_value (for example, production) is one of the values corresponding to the selected label key.

Learn more about creating and managing resource labels.

When you first load the cost table report, by default, the Labels column is not selected to display. To view the Labels column in your cost table, select Labels in the column display options.
Cost type Description A description of the type of cost for the line item.
  • Usage represents the cost of the row's Google Cloud usage.
  • Adjustment represents any invoice-level, manual adjustments made (this is rare).
  • Rounding Error represents the total rounding error that occurred during cost calculation. (When calculating usage costs, all costs are converted to the lowest billable unit, then summed to determine the invoice total. Sometimes, small rounding errors occur due to this cost conversion.)
  • Tax represents project-level taxes on usage and adjustments.
  • Total represents the total cost for the invoice month.
Usage start date Start Date The date of the first occurrence of usage for this invoice month (see note above on the possibility of late-arriving usage).
Usage end date End Date The date of the last occurrence of usage for this invoice month (see note above on the possibility of late-arriving usage).
Usage amount Quantity The quantity of usage units used.
Usage unit Unit The billing unit of the usage (such as hour or gibibyte month).
Cost in micros N/A The calculated cost of the usage in micro units (µ). Micro is a unit prefix in the metric system denoting a factor of 10−6 (one millionth). When we calculate your usage costs, we convert all costs to micro units to provide the level of accuracy needed to calculate any rounding errors. Examples:
  • 999,741 Cost in micros = 1.00 Cost (in currency).
  • -10,011,960 Cost in micros = -10.01 Cost (in currency).

When you first load the cost table report, by default, the Cost in micros column is not selected to display. To view the Cost in micros column in your cost table, select Cost in micros in the column display options.
List cost N/A

The List cost column is available for Cloud Billing accounts associated with a negotiated pricing contract, and represents the monthly cost of your usage calculated using list prices. The other cost columns, Unrounded cost and Cost, are calculated using the price that is applicable to your billing account (either list prices or negotiated prices). If your account has negotiated, custom pricing, you can compare List cost amounts to Cost amounts to determine how much you are saving with your negotiated prices.

Note: The List cost column is available starting with your July 2020 invoice, and only for Cloud Billing accounts associated with a negotiated pricing contract.

When you first load the cost table report, by default, the List cost column is not selected to display. To view the List cost column in your cost table, select List cost in the column display options.
Unrounded cost N/A The calculated cost of the usage, in the currency the Cloud Billing account is configured to use, to a precision of up to six decimal places. Unrounded cost is calculated using the SKU prices associated with your Cloud Billing account and can be helpful when analyzing your cost details and understanding the source of any discrepancies due to rounding.
Cost Amount The calculated cost of the usage, in the currency the Cloud Billing account is configured to use, rounded to two decimal places. Cost is calculated using the SKU prices associated with your Cloud Billing account and represents the amount charged for usage.

Notes about the cost table report

Matching your invoice

The cost table report matches your existing invoice as closely as possible. The display of credits and usage-based discounts (for example, promotional credits or sustained use discounts) are listed as separate line items on your invoice as well as in the cost table report. Online Cloud Billing reports and Cloud Billing Export to BigQuery do not break out credits and discounts into separate line items.

How costs are calculated for an invoice month

We use the term invoice month to refer to the time period that an invoice or statement covers.

  • The type of document you receive depends on the type of Cloud Billing account you are viewing.

    • Invoiced (offline) accounts receive invoices.
    • Self-serve (online) accounts receive statements.

  • Sometimes, at the end of a calendar month, there is a slight delay (up to a few days) in usage reporting.

  • Late-reported usage might not be included on that invoice month's statement or invoice and instead might roll over to the next invoice month; that is, those late-reported costs will show up on the next month's invoice or statement.

  • The cost table report is meant to match the charges on your invoice or statement. The possible result of late-reported usage is that your cost table report might include costs from more than one calendar month. For example, your October invoice or statement might include costs incurred at the end of September combined with the October costs.

  • To view your usage costs by actual usage date (calendar date or date range), see the online reports or analyze your exported billing data.

SKU Prices

Invoice usage details do not include a column for the SKU price. If you have negotiated pricing, the Unrounded cost and Cost amounts are calculated using the negotiated prices. The List cost amounts are calculated using the publicly-available list prices. You can compare List cost to Cost to determine how much you are saving with your negotiated prices.

To view your prices per SKU, see the Pricing table report or export your Cloud Billing prices to BigQuery. If you have questions regarding pricing per SKU, contact your Account Representative for more details.

Historical project data

The cost table report does not support historical metadata. If you delete a project or move the project to a different Cloud Billing account, the following values will not be listed in the cost table: Project Name, Project ID, Billing account ID, and Billing account name. The Project number value is persisted after a project is deleted. If you have enabled the export of Cloud Billing data to BigQuery you can find your historical project information in your BigQuery tables.

Taxes by project and by invoice

Starting from September 1, 2020, your cost details in the cost table show your tax costs for each of your projects, instead of as an invoice-level cost. Invoice-level tax totals continue to be displayed in the footer of the cost table report. You can identify and filter on your tax details using the Cost type column and the SKU description column.

For example, for costs recorded before September 1, 2020, your cost detail data looked similar to the following example, which shows a total tax cost of $10.

Billing account ID Project ID SKU description Cost type Cost
123456-ABCDEF-123456 example-project N1 Predefined Instance Core Usage $60
123456-ABCDEF-123456 test-project N1 Predefined Instance Core Usage $40
123456-ABCDEF-123456 0 State sales tax (10.0%) Tax $10

For costs recorded after September 1, 2020, the $10 tax total is broken out to attribute $6 for example-project, and $4 for test-project:

Billing account ID Project ID SKU description Cost type Cost
123456-ABCDEF-123456 example-project N1 Predefined Instance Core Usage $60
123456-ABCDEF-123456 example-project State sales tax (10.0%) Tax $6
123456-ABCDEF-123456 test-project N1 Predefined Instance Core Usage $40
123456-ABCDEF-123456 test-project State sales tax (10.0%) Tax $4

Viewing project-level taxes in the nested table view

To view your tax costs by project in the nested table view, you must use or configure a Group by option with Project as the first grouping dimension. For example, group by Project -> Service -> SKU.

Viewing project-level taxes in the flat table view

In the flat table view, if you have incurred tax costs, project-level taxes are displayed in rows near the end of the table. Each row with a Tax Cost type represents the total tax costs for a SKU description (specific tax type and percentage), attributed to a project.

About totals in the invoice header and the cost table footer

Rarely, you might notice the header total does not match the footer total. Starting with the September 2020 invoice or statement, the cost table report includes header information for the document providing details such as the invoice number, the billing account ID, and the invoice or statement totals.

  • The invoice total amount due or statement total new activity listed in the header is determined based on the timing of when the invoice or statement document was generated.
  • The Total listed in the cost table footer is generated by summing all the cost line items that appear in the cost table report.

Rarely, the two totals might not match. This might occur if your Cloud Billing account was closed and you were issued more than one invoice or statement in the same month to cover the last of the charges incurred by your Cloud Billing account before it was closed. Sometimes there is a slight delay (up to a few days) in usage reporting. The totals mismatch can be due to timing differences between the reporting of usage costs and when the invoice or statement is generated.

If you notice the totals in your cost table report's header and footer do not match, and you need help reconciling your invoice or statement, contact Cloud Billing Support for assistance.