Manage split bills (legacy console) - Expenses and Costs

Introduction to bill splitting

Bill splitting breaks down your total costs into more granular expense items.

The Alibaba Cloud Cost Center feature lets you create hierarchical relationships in complex organizational structures.
You can use cost centers with features like cost allocation tags and allocation rules to organize your cloud costs.
After you set up cost centers, you can use split bills to access your cost data.

Use a split bill to view the specific usage and allocated costs for each split item for internal cost allocation.

Note

If you use trusteeship, the Alibaba Cloud account must first enable split bills. RAM users can then view data on the Split Bill page in the Expenses and Costs console.

View a split bill

Important

Split bills are for internal accounting only and not for reconciliation. They reflect cost allocations after payment settlement and do not impact actual costs.

Costs are re-allocated after financial adjustments (such as refunds or account corrections). To maintain two-decimal precision, rounding differences may be assigned randomly to an instance or billable item, which can result in minor discrepancies across reports.

Log on to the Expenses and Costs console. In the navigation pane, choose Manage Split > Split Bill. On this page, you can view the detailed costs allocated to each Split Item.

A screenshot of the Split Bill page in the console.

The following table describes the key fields.

Billing Month: The month in which the costs were incurred.
Cost Center: The cost center associated with the split item cost.
Owner Account Name: The account associated with the cost.
Product Name: The product name.
Payment Time: The time at which the payment was processed or recorded. This field is only displayed when viewing data at the Billing Period level (that is, granular, non-aggregated view).
Instance ID: The instance ID from the bill. This is an ID at the billing level and is not always the same as the cloud resource instance ID. For example, the Instance ID for an OSS bill is in the format of Region+Service Type, such as cn-shanghai;standard.
Instance Dimensions: Includes Resource Group, Instance Tag, Public IP, Private IP, Region, and Zone. For more information, see Billing Details.

Note

After you add or update an Instance Tag, the change only affects the Instance Tag data in subsequent split bills.

To ensure tags appear in your split bill, set them before the billing cycle begins. Changes made after billing has started will not retroactively update past bills.

Split Item ID: The specific Split Item, such as an ECS instance ID, or an instance covered by a Reserved Instance (RI) or a Savings Plan.
Split Item Name: The name of the specific Split Item, such as the name of an ECS instance.
Billing Item: The specific Billable Item, such as Snapshot chain capacity.
List Price: The published unit price of the billable item before any discounts or deductions.
Split Usage: The Usage of the Split Item. When summarized by Billing Period, this shows the monthly total.
Split Item Usage Percentage: The Split Item's usage as a percentage of the total usage of all split items. This field is not displayed when costs are summarized by Billing Period.
Payable Amount: The allocated amount for the Split Item. When summarized by month, this field shows the monthly total.
Other Payment Methods: Includes cash payments, coupon deductions, and more.

Example

A reserved instance named RI-1 has a prepaid cost of 5. It is active from 0:00 to 5:00. Only one instance, I-1, uses it for 2 hours from 1:00 to 3:00. The unit price is 1.

The cost allocation process is as follows:

From 0:00 to 1:00, the Split Item Name is UNSPLIT_ITEM and the Payable Amount is 1.
From 1:00 to 2:00, the Split Item Name is I-1 and the Payable Amount is 1.
From 2:00 to 3:00, the Split Item Name is I-1 and the Payable Amount is 1.
From 3:00 to 4:00, the Split Item Name is UNSPLIT_ITEM and the Payable Amount is 1.
From 4:00 to 5:00, the Split Item Name is UNSPLIT_ITEM and the Payable Amount is 1.

Note

UNSPLIT_ITEM indicates that the reserved instance benefit was active but not consumed by any specific instance during this period. The cost is still allocated to the account but not tied to a named split item.

On the Split Bill page, you can perform the following actions:

Filter data: Click Billing Cycle to select a time range. Click the search bar next to Billing Cycle and select a filter condition, such as Instance Name, Instance ID, Split Item Name, or Split Item ID. Then, enter a value to search for the data.
Change view: In the Statistic Period section, select one of the following views:
- Billing Cycle: View aggregated monthly data.
- By Day: View daily aggregated data.
- Billing Period: View granular, per-usage-record data (includes Payment Time).
Customize columns: Click Customize Columns on the right to select which fields to display.
Export the bill: Click Export Billing Overview (CSV) on the right. In the dialog box, click Current Selection to export the currently filtered data. Click All Content to export all data for the primary and linked accounts for the selected billing cycle.

The export dialog box with options for Current Selection and All Content.

After making your selection, click OK to export the data.

This list reflects product support as of March 2021. For current support, see the latest documentation or contact support.

Product code	Split granularity	Description
oss	bucket	The system allocates the costs of OSS billable items to each bucket.
cbwp	eip	The system allocates the costs of each `cbwp` billable item to each EIP.
snapshot	ecs	The system allocates the cost of a snapshot chain to each ECS instance.
cdn	domain	The system allocates network costs to each Domain Name. The Split Usage of a single domain is derived from the usage of that domain under the current account's billing method. If the Split Item Usage for Domain A is A, then the Split Item Usage Percentage = A / SUM(A, B, C, ...).
pcdn	domain	The system allocates network costs to each Domain Name.
dcdn	domain	The system allocates network costs to each Domain Name. The Split Usage of a single domain is derived from the usage of that domain under the current account's billing method. If the Split Item Usage for Domain A is A, then the Split Item Usage Percentage = A / SUM(A, B, C, ...).
live	domain	The system allocates network costs to each Domain Name. The Split Usage of a single domain is derived from the usage of that domain under the current account's billing method. If the Split Item Usage for Domain A is A, then the Split Item Usage Percentage = A / SUM(A, B, C, ...).
vod	domain	The system allocates network costs to each Domain Name. The Split Usage of a single domain is derived from the usage of that domain under the current account's billing method. If the Split Item Usage for Domain A is A, then the Split Item Usage Percentage = A / SUM(A, B, C, ...).
newdysms_digital	SMS template	The system allocates SMS costs to each SMS template.
dysms_system	SMS template	The system allocates SMS costs to each SMS template.
dysms_operation	SMS template	The system allocates SMS costs to each SMS template.
dysms_intl	SMS template	The system allocates SMS costs to each SMS template.
RI	ECS instances, etc.	The system allocates prepaid RI costs to each covered instance.
savingplan	instance	The system allocates Savings Plan costs to each covered instance.

FAQ

How do I find the cost center for a split item?

You can find the assigned Cost Center for each Split Item in your Split Bill. The Cost Center column will show which cost center the item's cost has been allocated to.

What do the special values in the Split Item Name column mean?

The value in the Split Item Name column indicates how costs are allocated. The meaning depends on the product type:

For instance-based products:
- A hyphen (-) means that a specific split item does not exist or was not assigned to the resource. To view the final allocation results after assigning resources to a cost center, navigate to Expenses and Costs > Bills > Bill Details.
For splittable products (like OSS, CDN):
- UNSPLIT_ITEM: The cost for this resource was not allocated to any specific split item.
- UNKNOWN_ITEM: The split item for this resource's cost is missing or could not be identified.

Why do my reserved instances and savings plans have special split item names or zero cost?

For prepaid plans like reserved instances and savings plans, the Split Item Name and Payable Amount have specific meanings related to their allocation status:

UNSPLIT_ITEM: The prepaid benefit (reserved instance and savings plan) expired without being applied to any instances.
UNKNOWN_ITEM: The usage period for the prepaid benefit has not yet begun.
Zero payable amount: When you split or merge a reserved instance, the new instance inherits no direct cost—its value is derived from the original reserved instance. The total prepaid amount remains unchanged, but the accounting is redistributed across instances.