A billing account settles charges for Alibaba Cloud services. It manages your cash balance, credit limit, and linked third-party payment methods. This topic introduces the basic concepts and key features of billing accounts to help you manage your account assets efficiently.
Funding account overview
A billing account is your “digital wallet” for settling cloud service charges. It centrally manages all assets needed for cloud spending, including your cash balance, credit limit, coupons, and vouchers.
Relationship between Account and Fund Account
Alibaba Cloud account: An account you register on the Alibaba Cloud website. You use it to log in, purchase, and manage cloud resources.
Funding Account: An account that you use to settle fees, hold funds and vouchers, and manage third-party (payment method) options.
After registration, an Alibaba Cloud account automatically receives a default billing account. Each account has two types of relationships with its billing account: payment and management.
Payment relationship: Charges from using cloud services are settled through this billing account.
Each Alibaba Cloud account can be linked to only one billing account for payment.
A single billing account can pay for multiple Alibaba Cloud accounts.
Management relationship: By default, an Alibaba Cloud account can manage only its own billing account. After enabling the Enterprise Account Center, you can establish financial associations among multiple accounts within your organization.
An administrator account for an enterprise has management permissions for all accounts in that enterprise.
Each funding account can be configured with multiple administrator accounts.
A single Alibaba Cloud account can manage multiple billing accounts.
How to use
By default, only the root account can access and manage billing account information. To let Resource Access Management (RAM) users view or manage financial data, grant them fine-grained permissions.
Financial administrator permission: Attach the
AliyunBSSFullAccesspolicy to a RAM user. This grants full billing management permissions, including top-up, withdrawal, and payment.Read-only permission: Attach the
AliyunBSSReadOnlyAccesspolicy to a RAM user. This lets them view billing and account information but not perform write operations.
Log on to the Expenses and Costs console, and in the navigation pane on the left, click to go to the Billing Account page.
On the billing account page, you can view and manage the following: Basic Information, Asset Information, Account Settings, Bind Third-party Payment Method, Manage Billing Accounts, and Account Administrator settings.
The billing account feature is available only in the new Expenses and Costs console. If you are using the Legacy Console, click Try the new version at the bottom-left corner to switch. If this button does not appear, wait for the system upgrade. For details, see Gradual rollout of the new Expenses and Costs console.
View basic information
The Basic Information section displays the account name, account ID, owner, and status.
Account Name: A custom name for the billing account. Administrators or accounts granted the ModifyBillingAccount permission can edit this name.
Account ID: The unique numeric identifier for the billing account.
Account Type: The type of financial account, including Direct Customer Account (settles directly with Alibaba Cloud) and Ecosystem Account (associated with a distribution or virtual business partner and settles with the partner).
Owner: The owner of the billing account. For enterprise accounts, this is the company name. For individual accounts, this is the verified name of the individual.
Created At: The date and time the billing account was created.
Account Status: The current status of the account, such as Valid, Frozen, or Deregistered.
Manage account assets
The Asset Information section shows your current Available Credit and its detailed composition. You can also review the change history for each asset.
Your Available Credit equals your total asset balance minus any outstanding charges. This value updates in real time. If your account has overdue payments, your available credit may be negative.
The calculation formula for available credit varies by account type:
Direct Customer Account:
Available Credit=Cash Balance+Credit Limit+Credit Refund–Unsettled Charges for Current Month–Unsettled Charges from Previous Months.Ecosystem Account:
Available Credit=Quota–Quota Consumption Ledger–Unbilled Amount.
Credit Limit
Credit is a credit line granted by Alibaba Cloud to enterprise customers.
Credit Limit is the specific credit amount granted to you. Within this limit, enterprise accounts can consume services without prepaying cash.
Entity-level credit is a total credit line applied for based on your enterprise entity (Unified Social Credit Code). It is tied to your enterprise’s real-name verification on Alibaba Cloud.
Credit is available only for Direct Customer Accounts. The credit limit appears only after credit is enabled for your account. To apply for credit, contact your account manager.
The Regular Bank Credit section shows your current credit limit. Click Change Records to view the history of credit limit adjustments. This includes your Credit Information and Credit Record. The Credit Record list includes the Transaction ID, Transferred At, and Amount Before Transaction.
Regular Bank Credit Refund is the balance created when you receive a refund for a purchase made with your credit limit. This balance is recorded by the month of the refund or adjustment. By default, it can be used only to automatically write off bills from the current or future months. To write off bills from earlier months, enable Write off Previous Bills.
After enabling Write off Previous Bills, the system uses the credit refund to write off outstanding bills in chronological order. This may cause a discrepancy between the unsettled amount on a bill and the amount available for invoicing for that month.
Cash Balance
The Cash Balance shows your real-time remaining cash assets. These include cash added via top-up, and cash refunded or adjusted into your account.
Credit-controlled users can click the Top-up & Remittance button on the right to make a corporate remittance from a bank account.
If you select a shared account for a corporate bank transfer, use Remittance to manually claim the funds into your account.
For step-by-step instructions, see Alibaba Cloud payment methods.
This feature is available for Alibaba Cloud Direct Customer Accounts.
Quota information
For ecosystem customers, the billing account page displays Quota-related information, including the following:
Quota: Shows the Quota assigned to your account by your associated partner and its change history.
Quota Consumption Ledger: Shows the ledger balance already consumed from your Quota and its change history.
The Income and Expenditure Details section shows monthly summaries and detailed records of your income and expenses. Click the Regular Bank Credit Refund or Cash Balance button next to Income and Expenditure Details to search and view records. For step-by-step instructions, see View transaction details.
Account settings
The Account Settings section lets you configure and manage Service Suspension, Low Balance Alerts, Automatic Write-off, and Settlement Currency.
Service Suspension is a protection benefit for pay-as-you-go resources. When your account has overdue payments, this benefit allows your resources to continue running for a limited time or up to a certain credit limit. This gives you time to resolve the overdue payment and avoid immediate service interruption. During the postponement period, services continue to accrue charges, which are added to your overdue amount. For details, see Postpone service suspension for overdue payments.
Low Balance Alerts help you monitor balance changes and detect unexpected spending. This prevents service interruptions caused by insufficient account balances. Enable Low Balance Alerts and set a custom Alert Threshold. When your available credit falls below this threshold, the system sends alert notifications via internal messages, or email. You receive one alert per day for up to five consecutive days. If an overdue payment occurs, the system sends an overdue notification immediately. For details, see Monitor account balance.
You can use the Automatic Bill Settlement feature to automatically settle your bills. The Automatic Bill Settlement feature is enabled by default and cannot be disabled for users who are not on credit control. Users on credit control can check whether this feature is enabled in the Funding Account > Account Settings section.
When Automatic Write-off is enabled, the system automatically uses your account assets (including vouchers, credit refunds, and cash balance) to settle bills in the order they are generated.
When you disable Automatic Write-off, the system does not settle bills automatically. You must manually select and pay each bill.
ImportantFor enterprise customers, if your administrator initiates a “unified settlement” process for your account, the Automatic Write-off feature is disabled while a custom settlement is in progress. Do not re-enable automatic write-off during this time to avoid settlement errors.
Alibaba Cloud bills and settles in USD by default. You can change your Settlement Currency to EUR, SGD, or HKD. Settlement currency is set monthly and takes effect the following month. For step-by-step instructions, see Manage your settlement currency.
Add a third-party payment method
Click Add Payment Method to link , bank cards, or PayPal to your billing account. For step-by-step instructions, see Alibaba Cloud payment methods.
Manage multi-account payment relationships
When an Alibaba Cloud account is registered, the system automatically creates a default billing account to pay for its charges.
For enterprise financial management, after a management account and member accounts complete financial association, the system marks this relationship as Active. This means that financial management features—such as unified payment, credit sharing, and discount sharing—are enabled.
To simplify payment and bill settlement, administrators can use Add Account to set one billing account to pay for multiple Alibaba Cloud accounts, or use Change Payment Account to update the payment account for existing accounts.
To configure payment relationships, you must first enable the Enterprise Account Center and invite accounts with the same real-name verification for centralized management. Then manage the payment accounts for these accounts.
Set account administrators
The Account Administrator feature helps enterprise administrators centralize account management. It lets them assign Alibaba Cloud accounts to manage a billing account.
To use this feature, you must first enable the Enterprise Account Center and invite accounts with the same real-name verification for centralized management. Then the administrator can assign specific accounts to manage the billing account.
Account administrators fall into two types: Super Administrator and Regular Administrator:
Super Administrator: The system grants this permission automatically to the enterprise’s management account. It cannot be revoked.
Regular Administrator: A super administrator grants this permission manually. Regular administrators have the Modify Billing Account permission.
Add an account administrator:
Click the Add Administrator Account button. In the pop-up window, select the Alibaba Cloud account to manage this account, and then click Confirm. You can find the newly added administrator account in the administrator account list.
You can add multiple Alibaba Cloud accounts at once, with a maximum of 20 accounts per operation.
Revoke an account administrator:
In the account administrator list, find the corresponding Alibaba Cloud account, click the Revoke Authorization button in the Actions column, and click OK in the pop-up dialog for the change to take effect.
After revoking authorization, the account no longer appears in the administrator list.
FAQ
Why doesn’t my bill amount match my cash balance change?
The system applies credit limits and coupons first. Check your bill to see whether part of the charge was covered by credit or coupons. Your cash balance is used only after those assets are exhausted.
Where did my refund go?
Order refunds usually return via the original payment path or are added to your Alibaba Cloud billing account as cash balance. You can check the status and destination of each refund on the Expenses and Costs > Resource Unsubscription page.