Managing Reserved Instances - Azure Automated Billing

Azure Automated Billing - Managing Reserved Instances

Overview

For Indirect CSP's, Azure Reserved Instances (RIs) require manual configuration of cost and sell prices before they can be billed automatically.

What Are Reserved Instances?

  • Reserved Instances: Pre-purchased Azure capacity at discounted rate for 1-3 year terms

Viewing Reserved Instances

Navigate to Company > Azure > Companies, click on a company. Scroll to the Reserved Instances section.

You'll see: SKU Description, Resource Type, Quantity, Term, Status, Purchase/Expiry Dates, Utilization percentage, Cost, Sell Price, Include toggle, and Edit button.

Configuring Pricing

  1. Click the Edit button for an RI
  2. Enter Cost: Your actual cost (check distributor/Partner Center invoice)
  3. Enter Sell Price: Price to charge customer (cost plus margin)
  4. Click Save
  5. Toggle Include in Billing ON to include in billing periods

Understanding Utilization

Shows percentage used over 1 day, 7 days, and 30 days. High utilization (95%+) validates the purchase. Low utilization (<70%) may indicate optimization opportunities, or incorrect configuration that is not utilizing it.

Best Practices

  • Set consistent margin percentages across all RIs
  • Configure pricing before first billing approval
  • Monitor utilization monthly
  • Document which RIs are excluded and why
  • Track expiry dates for renewal planning

Common Scenarios

New Customer with Existing RIs: System discovers automatically reservations you have permission for. Configure cost/sell price from purchase invoices.

Mid-Term RI Purchase: Appears in next billing period. Configure when first seen. First period includes partial month.

Cancelled/Expired RIs: Toggle OFF to exclude from future billing.

Troubleshooting

RIs Not Appearing: Verify you have added your AdminAgents group to have permissions on the reserved instances. This needs to be done whenever there are new RI's purchased before you will have access to them.

RI Charges Not in Billing: Ensure Include toggle is ON, verify cost and sell price are configured, recalculate markup on billing period.

Next Steps

See Billing Periods and Approvals to review consumption including RIs.


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