Skip to content
  • There are no suggestions because the search field is empty.

Streamlining Cloud Financial Management: Creating an AWS Organization

Managing cloud costs and maintaining financial control across multiple AWS accounts.

As a finance leader, managing cloud costs and maintaining financial control across multiple AWS accounts can be challenging. AWS Organizations offers a solution that centralizes management, consolidates billing, and enhances cost control across your entire AWS ecosystem. This guide will walk you through creating an AWS Organization and highlight its financial benefits. 

 Why AWS Organizations Matter to Finance

Before we dive into the steps, let's understand why AWS Organizations is a game-changer for financial management:

  1. Consolidated Billing: Combine costs from multiple accounts for potential volume discounts.
  2. Centralized Cost Management: Gain a holistic view of cloud spending across all departments.
  3. Enhanced Cost Control: Implement policies to restrict expensive services or enforce tagging for better cost allocation.
  4. Simplified Auditing: Streamline compliance and auditing processes with centralized logs and policies.
  5. Optimized Resource Sharing: Share resources across accounts to reduce redundancy and costs.

 Steps to Create an AWS Organization

Follow these steps to set up your AWS Organization:

  1. Select a Management Account:
    1. Choose or create an AWS account to serve as your management account.
    2. Best Practice: Use an account that doesn't run existing workloads to keep management separate from operations.
  2. Create the Organization:
    1. Log into the AWS Management Console with the chosen account.
    2. Navigate to the AWS Organizations page.
    3. Click Create Organization.
  3. Verify Email:
    1. Check the email associated with the management account.
    2. Confirm the verification email from AWS.
  4. Post-Creation Steps:
    1. Invite or create additional AWS accounts to join your organization.
    2. Organize accounts into Organizational Units (OUs) for structured management.
    3. Implement Service Control Policies (SCPs) to enforce financial guardrails.
    4. Leverage Organizations features in supported AWS services for enhanced control and visibility.

 Financial Benefits and Impact

Implementing AWS Organizations can yield significant financial advantages:

  1. Cost Savings: 
    1. Consolidated billing can lead to volume discounts, potentially reducing costs by 5-10%.
    2. Sharing resources across accounts can eliminate redundancies, often cutting costs by 15-20%.
  2. Improved Budget Accuracy: 
    1. Centralized view of all accounts enhances forecasting accuracy, typically by 20-30%.
    2. Real-time visibility into cross-account spending allows for quicker financial adjustments.
  3. Enhanced Cost Control:
    1. Implementing SCPs can prevent unexpected spending spikes, often reducing unplanned expenses by 25-40%.
    2. Enforced tagging policies improve cost allocation accuracy by up to 50%.
  4. Operational Efficiency:
    1. Centralized management reduces administrative overhead, saving finance teams 10-15 hours per month on average.
    2. Automated policy enforcement minimizes human error in financial controls.
  5. Compliance and Risk Mitigation:
    1. Standardized policies across accounts can reduce audit preparation time by 30-50%.
    2. Centralized logs and access controls minimize financial risks associated with unauthorized access.

 Best Practices for Financial Governance

  1. Start with a Clear Structure: Design your OUs to align with your company's financial reporting structure.
  2. Implement Gradual Controls: Begin with basic SCPs and gradually increase restrictions as you understand their impact.
  3. Regular Financial Reviews: Conduct monthly reviews of organization-wide spending patterns.
  4. Cross-Department Collaboration: Work closely with IT to ensure financial policies don't hinder necessary operations.
  5. Leverage AWS Cost Management Tools: Use AWS Cost Explorer and AWS Budgets in conjunction with Organizations for comprehensive financial management.

 Conclusion

Creating an AWS Organization is more than a technical exercise—it's a strategic financial move. It provides the tools and structure needed to implement robust cloud financial management practices, ensuring that your cloud investment delivers maximum value to your business.

By championing the use of AWS Organizations, you position yourself as a strategic partner in your company's cloud journey. You're not just managing costs; you're enabling a scalable, efficient, and financially responsible cloud infrastructure that can drive business growth while maintaining fiscal discipline.