Previously in the Yotascale interface there was a single toggle in Cost Analytics which allowed users to show or hide one-time costs.
Yotascale is includes amortization of all one-time fees, including RI purchases, taxes, support, and long-lived subscriptions. To help users who relied on this toggle to understand what is in the interface now, we’ve created a quick explanation of the changes, below.
If you want to see cost that...
Matches your AWS bill
Select ‘cash.’ This version of your cost includes all one-time fees (including RI upfront fees), and shows everything that you paid out to Amazon on the month where the charges occurred.
Matches value received
Select ‘accrual.’ This includes RI fees applied at the instance level for every hour, and shows other one-time fees amortized down to the day for the full time period where the resource is used (e.g. ‘New Relic 1 year subscription’ would be broken down and show a small amount daily for the full year).
Frequently Asked Questions
- Do both ‘cash’ and ‘accrual’ show one-time costs?
Yes, the major difference is that the costs are fully amortized in the ‘accrual’ option, which aligns to how the business receives value from large purchases and reduces the spikiness of the cost graphs.
- I used to look at my team’s cost with the ‘one time costs’ flag turned off, and now I’m using the ‘accrual’ option. Why did my cost go up?
The most common reason is that your team is benefiting from all-upfront or partial-upfront RIs. Prior to this change, none of the upfront cost was distributed to teams using instances with RI coverage (meaning instances appeared free or heavily discounted to your team, even though there was additional cost to the business). Now, with 'accrual'-based reporting, Yotascale amortizes all RI fees and applies them to the team who benefited from the RI for that instance hour.
- Yotascale's 'accrual' cost does not match Amazon Cost Explorer's 'amortized' cost. What is the difference?
Amazon's Cost Explorer only amortizes RI upfront fees. Yotascale's 'accrual' cost amortizes to the day all costs in the Amazon CUR file that have a defined start and end date. Examples of additional fees that we amortize include support fees, taxes, and marketplace subscriptions like a 1 year New Relic subscription. This way, your 'accrual' view of cost includes all of the value your company is receiving, on the day you're receiving it.