Unexpected or confusing costs on a bill can be frustrating. To take away the pain of working out your cloud costs, VMware Cloud Services includes a monthly Activity Statement that breaks down your charges and gives you the detail you need to make better decisions about cloud spend.
Have you ever read through your phone bill and spotted a charge you don’t understand? Do you then get frustrated trying to figure out the math, eventually deciding to pick up the phone, press ‘0’ five times, listen to some elevator music and finally get transferred to an agent? You’re not alone. Understanding why costs are the way they are can be frustrating.
Here at VMware, we want to take the guesswork out of understanding the costs on your monthly bill, so you don’t have to jump through hoops to figure it out. With this in mind, we are pleased to announce the release of the new and improved billing Activity Statement available within the VMware Cloud Services console.
What is an Activity Statement and what information does it provide?
Your Activity Statement provides a summary of all service charges accrued in the billing period, payments made against the service charges, and a breakdown of service usage. The Activity Statement is available monthly within the console, four days after the billing period ends.
It’s not an invoice. Instead,you can view the usage and related charges that your organization has incurred throughout the billing period.
Please note that Activity Statements are not available for MSP customers, since this new capability is not part of the Cloud Provider Hub.
The Activity Statement contains multiple sections which allow you to view your summarized costs in addition to cost by service. Each month, you can see:
- Billing Period Summary
- Visual Summary (Charges History and Charges Breakdown)
- Service Charges
- Detailed View of Charges (note: sections and details may vary based on services consumed)
NOTE: Images in this document are for visual purposes only. Product and pricing depicted does not reflect actual pricing.
Billing Period Summary
The Billing Period Summary contains a summary of charges, credits, payments and the overall balance.
Charges History and Charges Breakdown
The Charges History includes a historical view of charges by service. The Charges Breakdown provides a breakdown of charges by service for that billing period.
Service Charges
The Service Charges section includes charges and credits incurred within the billing period and any payments applied against those charges for each subscribed service. Service charges can include term commitment purchases, on-demand usage and additional charges related to service usage. Credits may include discounts, promotions and adjustments made per service.
You will also find a balance per service along with any payments made.
Detailed View of Charges
Finally, if you want to dive a bit deeper and understand your on-demand or ancillary charges, those will be available by service, if applicable. Data will be aggregated by week in this section.
How can you access the Activity Statement?
Org Owners and users with the ‘Billing Read-only’ role can access the Activity Statement
monthly. It will be available for download four days after your billing period ends. To access the statement:
- Log in to the VMware Cloud Service console
- Navigate to the Billing & Subscriptions > Overview tab and click ‘View Last Bill’ under the ‘Last Billing Statement’ section
- Alternatively, navigate to the Billing & Subscriptions > Invoices & Statements tab
We hope this helps you to better understand your monthly charges . For additional information and resources on this topic, explore the references below.
