# Using the AWS Billing and Cost Management home page
Using the console home page

Use the Billing and Cost Management home page for an overview of your AWS cloud financial management data and to help you make faster and more informed decisions. Understand high-level cost trends and drivers, quickly identify anomalies or budget overruns which require your attention, review recommended actions, understand cost allocation coverage, and identify savings opportunities. 

The data on this page comes from AWS Cost Explorer. If you haven’t used Cost Explorer before, it’s *automatically* enabled for you once you visit this page. It can take up to 24 hours for your data to appear on this page. When available, your data will be refreshed at least once every 24 hours. The Cost Explorer data on the home page is tailored for analytical purposes. This means the data can differ from your invoices and the **Bills** page due to differences in how data is grouped into AWS services; how discounts, credits, refunds, and taxes are displayed; differences in timing for the current month's estimated charges; and rounding.

For more information, see [Knowing the differences between Billing and Cost Explorer data](differences-billing-data-cost-explorer-data.md).

For more information about AWS Cloud Financial Management, see the [Getting started](https://console.aws.amazon.com/costmanagement/home?#/getting-started) page in the AWS Billing and Cost Management console. You can choose a topic and then follow the links to that specific console page or the documentation.

## Managing Billing and Cost Management widgets


You can customize how the widgets appear by moving or resizing the widgets.

**To manage the Billing and Cost Management widgets**

1. Open the AWS Billing and Cost Management console at [https://console.aws.amazon.com/costmanagement](https://console.aws.amazon.com/costmanagement/home).

1. (Optional) To customize the Billing and Cost Management home page, drag and drop a widget to move it, or change the widget size.

1. To take action on each recommendation or to learn more, review the data in the widget and then follow the links in the widget.

1. To reset the layout, choose **Reset layout** and then choose **Reset**.

You can use the following widgets:
+ [Cost summary](#cost-summary-widget)
+ [Cost monitor](#cost-monitor-widget)
+ [Cost breakdown](#cost-breakdown-widget)
+ [Recommended actions](#recommended-actions-widget)
+ [Savings opportunities](#savings-opportunities-widget)
+ [Top trends](#top-trends-widget)

## Cost summary


The cost summary widget provides a quick view of your current cost trends compared to your spending in the last month. 

To view your month-to-date estimated charges on the **Bills** page, choose **View bill**. 

All metrics shown in the cost summary widget exclude credits and refunds. This means you might see different numbers on the home page compared to the **Bills** page or your invoices. The widget shows the following metrics that you can choose to view in Cost Explorer:
+ **Month-to-date cost** – Your estimated costs for the current month. The trend indicator compares the current month's costs to last month's cost for the same time period. 
+ **Last month's cost for same time period** – Your costs for last month, for the same time period. For example, if today is February 15, the widget also shows last month's cost for January 1–15. 
**Note**  
 Trend calculations might be influenced by the number of days in each month. For example, on July 31, the trend indicator will look at costs from July 1–31 and compare it to costs for June 1–30. 
+ **Total forecasted cost for current month** – A forecast of your estimated total costs for the current month. 
+ **Last month's total cost** – The total costs for last month. For more information, choose each metric to view the costs in Cost Explorer, or choose **View bill** to view your month-to-date estimated charges on the **Bills** page. 
**Note**  
The metrics in this widget exclude credits and refunds. The costs here might differ from the costs on the **Bills** page or your invoices.

For more information about Cost Explorer, see [Forecasting with Cost Explorer](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cost-management/latest/userguide/ce-forecast.html).

## Cost monitor


 This widget provides a quick view of your cost and usage budgets and any cost anomalies that AWS detected, so that you can fix it. 
+  **Budgets status** – Alerts you if any of your cost and usage budgets were exceeded.

  The status can be the following: 
+  **OK** – Cost and usage budgets haven't been exceeded. 
+  **Over budget** – A cost and usage budget has been exceeded. Your actual cost is greater than 100%. The number of exceeded budgets and a warning icon will appear. 
+  **Setup required** – You haven't created any cost and usage budgets. 

Choose the status indicator to go to the **Budgets** page to review details of each budget or to create one. The budgets status indicator only shows information about cost and usage budgets. Budgets that you created to track the coverage or utilization of your Savings Plans or reservations won't appear in this widget. Cost anomalies status alerts you if AWS detected any anomalies with your costs since the first day of the current month. The status can be the following:
+  **OK** – Cost anomalies haven't been detected in the current month. 
+  **Anomalies detected** – A cost anomaly has been detected. The number of anomalies detected and a warning icon will appear. 
+  **Setup required** – You haven't created any anomaly detection monitors. 

Choose the status indicator to go to the **Cost Anomaly Detection** page to review details of each anomaly detected, or to create an anomaly detection monitor. The cost anomalies status indicator only displays information about cost anomalies detected in the current month. To view your full anomaly history, go to the **Cost Anomaly Detection** page. 

For more information about budgets, see [Managing your costs with AWS Budgets](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cost-management/latest/userguide/budgets-managing-costs.html).

For more information about anomaly detection monitors, see [Detecting unusual spend with AWS Cost Anomaly Detection](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cost-management/latest/userguide/manage-ad.html).

## Cost breakdown


This widget provides a breakdown of your costs for the last six months, so you can understand cost trends and drivers. To break down your costs, choose an option from the dropdown list:
+ Service
+ AWS Region
+ Member account (for AWS Organizations management accounts)
+ Cost allocation tag
+ Cost category 

If you choose cost category or cost allocation tag key, hover over the chart to see the values. 

To dive deeper into your cost and usage, choose **Analyze your costs in Cost Explorer**. Use Cost Explorer to visualize, group, and filter your costs and usage, with additional dimensions, such as Availability Zone, instance type, and database engine. 

For more information about Cost Explorer, see [Exploring your data using Cost Explorer](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cost-management/latest/userguide/ce-exploring-data.html).

## Recommended actions


This widget helps you implement AWS cloud financial management best practices and optimize your costs. It displays your recommended actions, ranked by priority. Critical alerts appear at the top, followed by advisory warnings and informational recommended actions. 

As a best practice, we recommend that you monitor any critical alerts daily, focusing on immediate actions like payment issues or budget overruns. Review any advisory warnings on a weekly basis.

**To use the recommended actions widget**

1. For each recommendation, follow the link to take action on your account. By default, the widget shows up to four recommended actions.

1. To load additional recommended actions, choose **Load more actions**. 

1. To dismiss a non-critical recommended action, choose the **X** icon on the top right corner. Critical alerts remain visible until addressed. Dismissed non-critical recommended actions will reappear after 7 days.

**Note**  
You will need IAM permissions to the AWS service in order to see the recommended actions. For example, if you have access to all Billing and Cost Management actions except `budgets:DescribeBudgets`, you can view all recommendations on the page except for budgets. See the error message about adding the missing IAM action to your policy.  
You will need the new IAM permission `bcm-recommended-actions:ListRecommendedActions` to view all recommended actions. For more information, see [Understanding recommended action types](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cost-management/latest/userguide/recommended-action-types.html).  
For a full list of the different recommended action types and the corresponding IAM policy permissions needed in order to see the recommended actions, refer to [Billing and Cost Management recommended actions policies](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cost-management/latest/userguide/billing-permissions-ref.html#allows-recommended-actions-access).

For full details on the categorization of recommended actions, see [Understanding recommended action types](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cost-management/latest/userguide/recommended-action-types.html). 

## Cost allocation coverage


To create cost visibility and accountability in your organization, it's important to allocate costs to teams, applications, environments, or other dimensions. This widget shows unallocated costs for your cost categories and cost allocation tags, so that you can identify where to take action to organize your costs.

Cost allocation coverage is defined as the percentage of your costs that don't have a value assigned to the cost category or cost allocation tag keys that you've created. 

**Example**  
+ Your month-to-date spend is \$1100, and you created a cost category (named *Teams*) to organize costs by individual teams. 
+ You have \$140 in the *Team A* cost category value, \$135 in the *Team B* cost category value, and \$125 that are unallocated.
+ In this case, your cost allocation coverage is 25/100 = 25%.

A lower unallocated cost metric means that your costs are properly allocated along the dimensions important to your organization. For more information, see [Building a cost allocation strategy](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/latest/tagging-best-practices/building-a-cost-allocation-strategy.html) in the *Best Practices for Tagging AWS Resources* whitepaper.

This widget compares the month-to-date unallocated cost percentage to all of last month's unallocated cost percentage. The widget shows up to five cost allocation tag keys or five cost categories. If you have more than five of either cost allocation tag keys or cost categories, use the widget preferences to specify the ones that you want.

To analyze your unallocated costs in more detail by using Cost Explorer, choose the cost category or cost allocation name. 

To improve cost allocation coverage for your cost categories or cost allocation tags, you can edit your cost category rules or improve resource tagging by using AWS Tag Editor.

For more information, see the following topics:
+ [Managing your costs with AWS cost categories](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/manage-cost-categories.html)
+ [Using AWS cost allocation tags](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/cost-alloc-tags.html)
+ [Using Tag Editor](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/tag-editor/latest/userguide/tag-editor.html)

## Savings opportunities


This widget shows recommendations from Cost Optimization Hub to help you save money and lower your AWS bill. This can include: 
+ Deleting unused resources 
+ Rightsizing over-provisioned resources 
+ Purchasing Savings Plans or reservations

For each savings opportunity, the widget shows your estimated monthly savings. Your estimated savings are *de-duplicated* and *automatically* adjusted for each recommended savings opportunity. 

**Example**  
+ Let's say that you have two Amazon EC2 instances, *InstanceA* and *InstanceB*.
+ If you purchased a Savings Plan, you could reduce the cost for *InstanceA* by \$120 and the cost of *InstanceB* by \$110, for a total of \$130 savings. 
+ However, if *InstanceB* is idle, the widget might recommend that you terminate it instead of purchasing a Savings Plan. The savings opportunity would tell you how much you could save by terminating the idle *InstanceB*. 

To view the savings opportunities in this widget, you can opt in by visiting the Cost Optimization Hub page or using the [Cost Management preferences](https://console.aws.amazon.com/cost-management/home?#/settings) page.

When you use billing transfer, savings opportunities are calculated based on On-Demand costs (costs without negotiated discounts, AWS Partner Network program discounts, or Reserved Instance and Savings Plans discounts). To learn about cost optimization best practices while billing transfer is active, see [Transfer billing management to external accounts](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awsaccountbilling/latest/aboutv2/orgs_transfer_billing.html).

## Top trends


This widget provides a quick overview of your most significant cost changes between the previous two months.
+ Shows the top 10 cost variations, sorted by absolute dollar difference
+ Displays both percentage and absolute value changes
+ Highlights specific services, accounts, or Regions where changes occurred
+ Allows you to choose any trend to analyze it further in Cost Explorer's Compare view

To dive deeper into your cost trends, choose **View your cost trends in Cost Explorer**.

For more information about comparing costs, see [Comparing your costs between time periods](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cost-management/latest/userguide/ce-cost-comparison.html).

# Knowing the differences between Billing and Cost Explorer data


## Billing data


Your billing data appears on the **Bills** and **Payments** pages of the AWS Billing and Cost Management console, and in the invoice that AWS issues to you. Billing data helps you understand the actual invoiced charges for previous billing periods, and the estimated charges that you've accrued for the current billing period, based on your month-to-date service usage. Your invoice represents the amount that you owe to AWS. 

## Cost Explorer data


Your Cost Explorer data appears in the following places: 
+ The Billing and Cost Management home page
+ The pages for Cost Explorer, Budgets, and Cost Anomaly Detection
+ Your reports for coverage and usage

 Cost Explorer supports deep-dive analysis so that you can identify savings opportunities. Cost Explorer data provides more granular dimensions (such as Availability Zone or operating system) and includes features that might show differences when compared to billing data. On the **Cost Management** preferences page, you can manage your preferences for Cost Explorer data, including linked account access and historical and granular data settings. For more information, see [Controlling access to Cost Explorer](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cost-management/latest/userguide/ce-access.html).

## Amortized costs


Billing data is always presented on a *cash* basis. It represents the amount that AWS charges you each month. For example, if you purchase a one-year, all-upfront Savings Plan in September, AWS will charge you the full cost for that Savings Plan in the September billing period. Your billing data will then include the full cost of that Savings Plan in September. This helps you understand, validate, and pay your AWS invoices on time.

In contrast, you can use Cost Explorer data to view amortized costs. When costs are amortized, an upfront charge is spread, or *amortized* over the life of that agreement. In the previous example, you can use Cost Explorer for an amortized view of your Savings Plan. A one-year, all-upfront Savings Plan purchase will be spread evenly across the 12 months of the commitment term. Use amortized costs to gain insight into the effective daily costs associated with your portfolio of reservations or Savings Plans.

## AWS service grouping


With billing data, your AWS charges are grouped into AWS services on your invoice. To help with deep-dive analysis, Cost Explorer will group some costs differently. 

For example, let's say that you want to understand compute costs for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud compared to ancillary cost, such as Amazon Elastic Block Store volumes or NAT gateways. Instead of a single group for Amazon EC2 costs, Cost Explorer will group costs into **EC2 - Instances** and **EC2 - Other**. 

In another example, to help analyze data transfer costs, Cost Explorer groups your transfer costs by service. In billing data, data transfer costs are grouped into a single service named **Data Transfer**.

## Estimated charges for the current month


Your billing data and Cost Explorer data are refreshed at least once per day. The cadence when they're refreshed might differ. This can result in differences for your month-to-date estimated charges.

## Rounding


Your billing data and Cost Explorer data are processed at different granularities. For example, Cost Explorer data is available with hourly and resource-level granularity. Billing data is monthly and doesn't offer resource-level details. As a result, your billing data and Cost Explorer data might vary due to rounding. When these data sources are different, the amount on your invoice is the final amount that you owe to AWS.

## Presentation of discounts, credits, refunds, and taxes


The billing data on the **Bills** page (for example, in the **Charges by service** tab) excludes refunds, while Cost Explorer data includes refunds. When a refund is issued, this might cause differences in other charge types. 

For example, let's say that a portion of your taxes was refunded. On the **Bills** page, the **Taxes by service** tab will continue to show the full tax amount. The Cost Explorer data will show the post-refund tax amount.

If you use billing transfer and sign in to the Billing and Cost Management console with a bill source account, you can't view credits, refunds, or taxes in the **Bills** page, Cost Explorer, or AWS Cost and Usage Report."

# Understanding recommended action types


Recommended actions automatically identify and prioritize the most important actions you should take related to Billing and Cost Management, regarding budgets, payments, cost optimization, cost anomalies, IAM permissions, and tax settings.

Recommended actions are categorized into three levels based on urgency, financial impact, and account relevance.

1. **Critical alerts**: These are high-priority items that could impact your account standing, such as past due payments or expired payment methods.

1. **Advisory warnings**: These are important notifications about your configured resources like budgets, tax settings, and credits that help you identify opportunities to save costs.

1. **Informational**: These are best practices and optimization opportunities to improve your cloud financial management.

The following table provides an overview of the different recommended actions, organized by severity and feature.

**Note**  
\$1 These action types are always visible. Additional action types require the `bcm-recommended-actions:ListRecommendedActions` permission. For more information, see [Billing and Cost Management recommended actions policies](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cost-management/latest/userguide/billing-permissions-ref.html#allows-recommended-actions-access).


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[\[See the AWS documentation website for more details\]](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/cost-management/latest/userguide/recommended-action-types.html)