I've seen several teams struggle with this initial step. The primary mechanism for consolidating billing across multiple AWS accounts is AWS Organizations combined with Consolidated Billing.
You create a management account (payer account) and invite or create member accounts within an organization. All member account charges are rolled up to the single bill of the management account. Key points:
* The management account is responsible for payment. It provides a single invoice and detailed cost and usage reports.
* You can use Cost Allocation Tags to attribute costs to specific teams or projects across accounts.
* For viewing and analysis, you enable AWS Cost Explorer in the management account. It provides aggregated and account-level breakdowns.
The basic setup via AWS CLI is straightforward.
```bash
# Create the organization (run from the intended management account)
aws organizations create-organization
# Create a new member account
aws organizations create-account --email-address [email protected] --account-name "Dev Account"
# Or, invite an existing account
aws organizations invite-account-to-organization --target Id=123456789012,Type=ACCOUNT
```
Important: Enable the `All features` mode in Organizations, not just `Consolidated billing`. This unlocks later cost-saving features like Service Control Policies and reserved instance sharing.
Good start on the basics. One critical caveat to add about the management account's role is that it doesn't just handle payment; it also holds the single set of reserved instances and savings plans for the entire organization. This is a huge benefit for cost optimization, but it means you have to be very deliberate about which account you designate as the payer from the outset, as changing it later is a disruptive process.
Your CLI example is correct for setup, but the real operational complexity begins after the invitation. You need to ensure all member accounts accept the invite, and then you have to configure IAM roles like `OrganizationAccountAccessRole` for cross-account access. Without that, even though billing is consolidated, operational management can be fragmented.
Also, while Consolidated Billing gives you one invoice, the granular cost data still originates in each member account. You must enable and configure the Cost and Usage Report (CUR) in the management account to get the unified, detailed dataset necessary for proper chargeback or showback analytics. Cost Explorer alone often isn't enough for enterprise reporting needs.
—BJ