Cloud resources represent a significant cost. Beyond querying and analyzing cloud resource costs based on standard dimensions like cloud products and resources, users also expect to analyze and control cloud costs according to enterprise (or individual) cost budgeting management dimensions, such as by department or project. To meet this demand, Tencent Cloud offers a comprehensive cost allocation management solution and product capabilities based on such scenarios. This enables automatic ollection and allocation of cloud resource expenses according to the user's own cost allocation structure, ultimately achieving lean analysis and control of cloud resource costs.
Tencent Cloud currently offers two cost allocation tools, Cost Allocation Tags and Cost Allocation Unit, which help you customize management statistical analysis dimensions to better accommodate your diverse needs for billing and cost analysis.
Feature Overview
A Cost Allocation Unit is a customizable organizational structure. You can define its name and rules based on your own cost analysis dimension requirements, and aggregate resource costs to achieve cost allocation. A hierarchical structure is established in the form of a directory tree, and cloud costs are filtered and aggregated according to your custom structure to meet users' multi-dimensional management and analysis needs for bills. Compared to Cost Allocation Tags, the Cost Allocation Unit is a more advanced cost allocation tool with more powerful and flexible features, suitable for scenarios requiring allocation across multiple dimensions.
Before using the Cost Allocation Units, you need to set up the unit and define collection rules or cost sharing rules. This enables you to view the aggregated costs across different hierarchical levels of the Cost Allocation Units. The specific workflow is as follows:
Cost Allocation Units Setup
Scenario Description: If you are a large enterprise and wish to automatically aggregate and allocate cloud resource costs according to your enterprise's organizational cost budgeting management dimensions, such as by department or product line, you can utilize Tencent Cloud's Cost Allocation Units to achieve lean analysis and control of cloud resource costs. The specific steps are as follows:
Step 1: Creating a Cost Allocation Unit
You can go to Billing Center > Cost Allocation Units to establish your own cost allocation unit directory tree based on the enterprise's departments and business lines. The custom hierarchical structure supports up to 6 levels. The steps are as follows:
2. In the left sidebar, choose Cost Allocation Management > Cost Allocation Units > Cost allocation rules view > Collection Rules.
3. Create Unit:
On the Cost Allocation Units tab, create a custom hierarchical structure as needed. Click Create Unit or Create Sub-unit (up to 6 levels are supported). In the pop-up window, enter the Cost Allocation Unit Name and click Confirm to complete the creation.
Step 2: Configure Collection Rules
Note:
Only last-level cost allocation units support configuring collection rules (up to three levels of condition groups are supported),Cost allocation units at other levels are used only for hierarchical classification.
According to the collection rules configured for cost allocation units, the system allocates resource instances to the designated cost allocation units.
Once you have created cost allocation units based on your organization's departments and business lines, you can configure collection rules. The system will allocate resource instances to designated cost allocation units according to these rules. To create a new collection rule, follow these steps:
2. In the left sidebar, choose Cost Allocation Management > Cost Allocation Units > Cost allocation rules view > Collection Rules.
3. Click the last-level cost allocation unit to configure collection rules:
3.1 Click Set Now.
3.2 On the collection Rule Settings page, you can configure rules as needed.
Configure collection rules, where between conditions and between condition groups can be an AND relationship or an OR relationship (supporting up to three levels of condition groups).
For the same condition, collection can be enabled or disabled.
3.3 Click Apply Rule, and the setting will be completed successfully.
4. To browse collected resources, you can query the details of resources with collection rules configured on the Resource View > Collect Cost Allocation Resource page.
Note:
Cost allocation rules take effect the next day. Rules modified on the same day will refresh resource ownership relationships and the current month's cost allocation bill data the next day.
Cost allocation rules are saved as versions on a monthly basis. To modify historical monthly data, you can use the cost allocation rollback capability.
If multiple cost allocation rules apply to the same resource, the system follows this priority: manual allocation takes precedence over automatic collection rules, collection rules take precedence over sharing rules, and newly effective rules take precedence over previously effective rules.
After resources are tagged and set as cost allocation tags on the same day (system bill tag information will take effect the next day), if the cost allocation unit also sets this tag as a collection rule, then this rule in the cost allocation unit will take effect on T+2 day.
Step 3: Define Cost Sharing Rules
Note:
For cloud resources shared by multiple organizations (such as networks and resource packages), you can allocate shared resource costs among organizations by defining allocation ratios between organization units.
According to the configured shared cost allocation rules, the system will allocate shared costs to other cost allocation units.
To allocate shared cloud resource costs across different business departments within a company based on their resource usage, you can create shared cost allocation rules. The steps to create a new shared cost allocation rule are as follows:
4.4 Set sharing proportion: Proportional, Allocation by proportion or custom sharing proportion.
Proportional: Each cost allocation object is allocated equally.
Allocation by proportion: Allocate costs based on the proportion of aggregated costs in each cost allocation unit.
For example: The BWP bill amount in the cost statement is USD 500. This cost needs to be allocated proportionally to three cost allocation units: A, B, and C. It is known that USD 500 has been aggregated to unit A, USD 250 to unit B, and USD 250 to unit C. The proportional allocation calculation formula is as follows:
The shared cost amount for A is: 500 / (500 + 250 + 250) * 500 = USD 250.
The shared cost amount for B is: 250 / (500 + 250 + 250) * 500 = USD 125.
The shared cost amount for C is: 250 / (500 + 250 + 250) * 500 = USD 125.
Custom sharing proportion: Manually set the allocation proportion for each sharing target.
5. After configuration, click Create Rule to complete the creation of shared cost rules.
Step 4: Check cost allocation results
Note:
View Resource View to obtain a list of information for all Tencent Cloud resource instances currently in use, along with their associated units and matched rules.
Go to Cost Allocation Bills to view and download the cost details of resource instances aggregated by cost allocation units at each level.
2. In the left sidebar, choose Cost Allocation Management > Cost Allocation Units > Resource View.
3. Browse Resource Directory:
All Resources: Click All Resources to display the information list of all Tencent Cloud resource instances currently in use, along with their associated units and matched rules.
Unallocated Resources: Click Unallocated Resources to display a list of resources currently in use that have not been assigned a cost allocation unit.
Collected Cost Allocation Resources: Click Collected Cost Allocation Resource to display the list of resources collected by collection rules, along with their associated cost allocation units, collection methods, and matched rules.
Shared Cost Allocation Resources: Click Shared Cost Allocation Resource to display the list of resources shared by sharing rules, along with their associated sharing rules, collection methods, and matched rules.
4. Manual Allocation:
Allocate Resources: You can allocate resources that have no collection rule or sharing rule configured. Select multiple resources as needed, click Allocate Resources, and allocate them to existing cost allocation units or sharing rules in the pop-up window. Alternatively, click Assigned in the operation column to allocate a single resource in the pop-up window.
Batch Transfer: You can transfer collected or shared resources to other cost allocation units or sharing rules in batches. Select multiple resources as needed, click Batch Transfer, and transfer them to existing cost allocation units or sharing rules in the pop-up window. Alternatively, click Transfer in the operation column to transfer a single resource in the pop-up window.
Batch Remove: You can remove collected or shared resources in batches. Select multiple resources as needed, click Batch Remove, and remove the selected resources from the current collection rule or sharing rule. Alternatively, click Remove in the operation column, and then click Confirm in the pop-up window to remove a single resource.
5. The cost allocation results support custom fields, download, and filtering.
Custom Fields: Click the Field Settings button to select the fields you want to display.
Download: Click the Download button to download the current list.
Filter: Supports top search bar and column header filtering.
Cost Allocation Units Management
If you have created a cost allocation unit and need to query or adjust it, the procedure is as follows:
2. In the left sidebar, choose Cost Allocation Management > Cost Allocation Units > Cost allocation rules view > Collection Rules.
Query Unit: On the Cost Allocation Units tab, you can view the configured cost allocation units. The cost allocation unit directory tree supports expanding and collapsing.
Modify Name: Click the
button of the cost allocation unit to modify its name.
Copy Unit: Click the Copy Unit button to generate a replica cost allocation unit. The operation copies the unit's hierarchy but does not copy configured collection rules.
Adjust Unit: Supports dragging to adjust the organizational hierarchy of the directory tree.
For example, if you drag the group1 under the groupb and the groupb already has collection rules, adjusting the cost allocation unit hierarchy will allocate these rules to a cost allocation unit named with the suffix -auto, generating groupb-auto.
Delete Unit: Click Delete on the cost allocation units. After deletion, the collection rules under this unit will be cleared and cannot be recovered.
If a prompt appears indicating that the cost allocation unit cannot be deleted, it indicates that the unit or its sub-units have active sharing rules. Deleting the unit will affect allocation execution. Adjust the sharing rules before deletion.
Collection Rules Management
If you need to modify collection rules, the procedure is as follows:
2. In the left sidebar, choose Cost Allocation Management > Cost Allocation Units > Cost allocation rules view > Collection Rules.
3. Click the last-level cost allocation unit. In the details page on the right, you can perform the following operations on the cost allocation unit:
Edit Rule: Click Edit Rule, modify the collection rule, and then click Apply Rule to save the rule.
Clear Rule: Click Clear Rule to delete configured rules.
Sharing Rules Management
If you need to view, edit, or delete a created sharing rule, the procedure is as follows:
Note:
Sharing rules for the current billing period support viewing, editing, and deletion. Sharing rules for historical billing periods can only be viewed by clicking details.
2. In the left sidebar, choose Cost Allocation Management > Cost Allocation Units > Sharing Rules.
Details: Select a billing period and click the Details button of a sharing rule to view the configured sharing rules, you can also view the list of resources that the sharing rule applies to, along with details such as the sharing rule and collection method.
Edit: Select the current billing period, click the Edit button of the sharing rule to edit its content, and then click Save Rule to save the changes.
Delete: Select the current billing period, click the Delete button for shared allocation rules to delete this shared allocation rule.
Note:
Shared allocation rules are effective T+1. Rules modified on the same day will refresh resource ownership relationships and the current month's cost allocation bill data the next day.
If both shared allocation rules and collection rules apply to the same resource, the collection rules take precedence.
If multiple shared allocation rules apply to the same resource, the resource will be prioritized under the most recently effective shared allocation rule.
Cost Allocation Rollback
1. Log in to the Billing Center console and choose Cost Allocation Management > Cost Allocation Units > Cost Allocation Rollback.
2. Select the historical Rollback month as needed (supports single month or multiple months), then click Submit.
3. In the Confirm Submission Rollback Operation window, click OK, then the system begins the rollback.
4. After submitting the rollback, you can check the rollback status via the rollback records at the bottom of the page. Wait for the rollback to complete, then access the cost allocation bill to view the updated bill.
Note:
The rollback supports a maximum of 12 months and can only be retrospected back to the month when the cost allocation unit was activated.
Cost allocation rollback takes effect T+1. After rollback takes effect, your cost allocation bill data will be automatically updated.
Rollback Records Description
Operator: The UIN that submitted the retrospection operation, that is, the currently logged-in account, such as 100002345.
Submission Time: The time when the rollback was submitted, such as 2025-11-16 14:09:54.
Rollback month: Select the month (time period) for rollback, such as 2024 - 08 - 2024 - 12.
Effective rule month: rollback based on the current month's rules. By default, the current month is displayed.
Effective rule version: The system-generated effective rule version number is used to uniquely identify each version.
Rollback status:
Backtracking: The rollback task has been submitted but is not yet completed, and downstream data has not been refreshed.
Backtracked: The rollback task has been submitted and completed, and downstream data takes effect according to the latest rollback version.
