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Set, check, or remove monthly Azure spending budgets for customers in Partner Center

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Appropriate roles: Admin agent

You can set a monthly Azure spending budget for your customers in Partner Center. This budget helps you track and control their Azure spending, making it easier to manage costs and avoid surprises. By doing so, you can ensure that your customers' investments are optimized, and their financial planning is more accurate. Start setting up your budget today to take control of your Azure expenses!

By comparing their actual spending with the budgeted amount, you can help your customers plan better and stay within their financial limits. This proactive approach prevents unexpected bills and optimizes their Azure investment.

Besides setting a budget, you can also monitor your customer's Azure usage. Monitoring helps you detect incorrect configurations or suspicious activities that might hike up costs. Additionally, it allows you to identify trends in usage patterns, enabling better forecasting and resource allocation. Once identified, you can work with your customers to fix these issues and keep spending in check. For example, if a misconfigured virtual machine is causing high costs, you can guide them through optimizing its settings or selecting a more cost-effective instance type.

Note

This feature is unavailable in sandbox or Test in Production (TiP) accounts.

Azure spending data

Azure spending data is an estimate and might differ from your actual bill. It doesn't include taxes, credits, or other miscellaneous fees.

  • The spending data refreshes daily.
  • Your billing includes Azure services and resources your customers use. The billing continues until you update their account settings in the Azure portal to reflect any changes. To ensure accurate billing, ensure that your customers' account settings are up to date.

Set Azure spending budget for legacy Microsoft Azure subscriptions

You can set a monthly Azure spending budget for customers with legacy Microsoft Azure subscriptions in the Partner Center:

  1. Sign in to Partner Center and select the Billing workspace.

  2. Select Azure spending.

  3. Find the customers and select the desired customers for budget setting on this page.

  4. Enter a value for Monthly budget.

  5. Select Apply to save your changes.

You can set a budget for an individual customer in their subscription settings.

  1. Sign in to Partner Center and select the Customers workspace.

  2. Select the customer's Company name.

  3. On the customer's Subscriptions page, under Usage-based subscription, choose Change budget.

  4. Enter a value for the budget.

  5. Select Apply to save your changes.

You can remove a monthly Azure spending budget for your customers in Partner Center.

  1. Sign in to Partner Center and select the Billing workspace.

  2. Select Azure spending.

  3. Select the customer whose budget you want to remove.

  4. Select Remove budget.

You can track your customers' current Azure spending and monthly budgets at any time.

  1. Sign in to Partner Center and select the Billing workspace.

  2. Select Azure spending.

  3. Review the monthly budget, current spending, and budget percentage for each customer.

Screenshot of the Azure spending page in Partner Center.

How to access the new Azure spending (NCE) page

To access the new user interface in the new commerce experience (NCE):

  1. Sign in to Partner Center and select the Billing workspace.
  2. Select Azure spending (NCE) from the task menu on the left side.
  3. Manage your customers' budgets for Azure plan subscriptions by setting, adjusting, or removing them on this page to ensure cost efficiency and prevent overspending.

Note

The new page only shows customers who have an active Azure plan and are still working with the partner. If they stop working with the partner, they don't show up on this page.

By following these steps, you should be able to efficiently navigate the new interface and manage your customers' Azure spending budgets.

Set Azure spending budget using the new (NCE) page.

To set a monthly Azure spending budget for your customers:

  1. Sign in to Partner Center and select the Billing workspace.
  2. Select Azure spending (NCE) from the task menu on the left side.
  3. Go to the Customers section and select New budget.
  4. Set new budgets by searching for customer names in the side panel.
  5. Select Save.

Screenshot shows the new NCE version of the Azure spend page, with a list of customers set up with Azure spending budgets in Partner Center.

To update the monthly budget for your customers:

  1. Sign in to Partner Center and select the Billing workspace.
  2. Select Azure spending (NCE) from the task menu on the left side.
  3. Select the customers by checking the boxes next to their names in the Customers section.
  4. Select Update budget.
  5. View customer names and budgets in the side panel.
  6. Update the budget amount for each customer.
  7. Select Save.

Screenshot shows the new NCE version of the Azure spend page, with the Update budget configuration setting open.

To remove the monthly budget for your customers:

  1. Sign in to Partner Center and select the Billing workspace.
  2. Select Azure spending (NCE) from the task menu on the left side.
  3. Select the customers by checking the boxes next to their names in the Customers section.
  4. Select Update budget.
  5. View customer names and budgets in the side panel.
  6. Clear the budget field for the customer.
  7. Select Save.

To monitor your customers' Azure expenses and monthly budgets:

  1. Sign in to Partner Center and select the Billing workspace.
  2. Select Azure spending (NCE) from the task menu on the left side.
  3. Review the customers' monthly budgets, current estimates, and percentage of budget used so far in the Customers section.

Important

Estimates of resource usage are usually a day behind actual usage. Occasionally, specific constraints might cause longer delays.

Screenshot shows a list of customers set up with Azure spending budgets in Partner Center.

Notifications for budget limits

To help you manage your customers' monthly Azure spending effectively, set up email alerts. These alerts notify you when spending approaches a specific amount. You receive an email every seven days once usage hits between 80% and 100% of the monthly budget. This proactive approach helps you to monitor costs, avoid unexpected charges, and ensure customers stay within their budget.

To configure these alerts:

  1. Sign in to Partner Center and select the Notifications (bell) icon.

  2. Select My preferences.

  3. Configure a preferred email address.

  4. Configure the preferred language for the notification.

  5. Select all boxes under the Notification preferences section in the Billing workspace.

Note

You don't get a notification if the budget exceeds 100%.

By following these steps, you can stay informed and manage your customers' Azure spending efficiently.

Itemized costs by service

You can view itemized costs (and estimated usage) by service for usage-based subscriptions:

  1. Sign in to Partner Center and select the Customers workspace.

  2. Select the customer's Company name.

  3. Go to the customer's Subscriptions page.

  4. Select the Subscription name under Usage-based subscriptions.

  5. Review Itemized costs by service and Estimated usage for the current month on the subscription page.

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