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:
- Overview of access control
- Create custom roles for Cloud Billing
- Cloud Billing APIs access control
- Understanding predefined Identity and Access Management roles for Cloud Billing
Accessing the report
To view the cost table report for your Cloud Billing account, for an invoice month:
Sign in to the Google Cloud Console.
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.
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.

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

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 titledCustom 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

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 aSKU description
(specific tax type and percentage), for aProject 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 |
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:
If the Note: The first invoice month with
|
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
When you first load the cost table report, by default,
the |
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.
Note: The first invoice month with
When you first load the cost table report, by default,
the |
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 |
Cost type | Description | A description of the type of cost for the line item.
|
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:
When you first load the cost table report, by default,
the |
List cost | N/A | The Note: The When you first load the cost table report, by default,
the |
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.
Related topics
- Get an invoice, statement, or receipt
- Understand your monthly invoice
- View your Cloud Billing reports and cost trends
- Export Cloud Billing data to BigQuery
- View your cost and payment history