Amazon Web Services (AWS) Organizations Accounts Monthly Billing Breakdown Automation

TL;DR.

Maven X demonstrates an automation tool that imports monthly AWS billing data into Airtable, streamlining financial tracking. This solution enhances efficiency, accuracy, and consistency by eliminating manual data entry.

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Script Content

Introduction.

Hi, I’m Noah from Maven X. In this video we’ll see how Maven X uses automation to import monthly AWS organizations accounts billing amounts to Airtable for financial tracking.

This is part of our business automation series, where we showcase how automation has helped Maven X streamline operations, drive growth, and ensure precision. As you watch, consider how automation can save your business time, eliminate repetitive tasks, and enhance accuracy, ultimately boosting your productivity.

Problem Statement.

One common challenge businesses face is manually importing billing data each month to properly track financials and record the information correctly between multiple services and locations.

High Level Explanation.

That’s why we created our AWS Billing Import automation. This solution ensures that every month, our Maven Web AWS Billing data is automatically imported into our Airtable CRM for expenses tracking. If you use AWS and AWS Organizations, we all know that AWS bills the entire root account amount once each month. The problem with this is that we aren’t able to see the exact billing details for each of our customer amounts and accurately record the expenses to the associated deal. This automation allows us to take AWS Billing reports, parse the data, add records for each Maven Web client account into our CRM, tag the associated deal, and track our AWS expenses within our CRM instead of having to go to AWS each time. We have built dashboards that get automatically updated to see spikes on AWS charges and more so we keep our AWS spending under control and tracked accurately.

Demonstration.

Now let’s see how the automation works:

1. List the Bucket Files: The automation starts by listing the files in the AWS S3 bucket containing the monthly cost billing reports every first of the month.
2. Get the File: The automation retrieves the CSV file from the defined S3 bucket.
3. Router – Process CSV Files: The process is routed just to handle one route of the CSV parsing and the team notification to review the records for accuracy.
4. Parse CSV: First, the CSV file is parsed to extract the exact billing data in the report that we care about.
5. Iterate the Amounts: The automation iterates through the billing data to extract account totals.
6. Iterate the Account Numbers: The automation iterates through the account numbers to match them with the billing data.
7. Iterate the Account Names: The automation iterates through the account names to match them with the billing data.
8. Create Airtable Record: A new record is created in Airtable for each account, capturing the AWS account name, account ID, billing amount, and the billing period to get the right deals, clients, and dates of the charges.
9. Send Slack Notification: Once completed, a message is sent to the designated Slack channel, notifying the team of the new AWS Billing data and providing a link to the Airtable records to review. As much as we try to tune this report and limitations in the generation of the AWS Billing Reports and the time when they are generated, there are some discrepancies unfortunately. This Slack message contains a link directly to AWS where authorized users can validate in the console what the actual billing amounts are.

Benefits Recap.

By automating this process, we gain a few benefits like:

• Efficiency: This automation eliminates the need for manual data import and notifications, saving significant time and effort. As this financial data can be tedious it helps save searching for all the Airtable records and amounts involved.
• Accuracy: Automated data handling reduces the risk of errors in recording billing details and record linking to the deals in Airtable.
• Consistency: Ensures that every month’s billing data is processed and notified in the same manner, maintaining high standards of record keeping to stay on top of business expenses.
• Scalability: As the volume of billing data increases, the automation can handle the load without additional manual effort.

Maven X Services & AI Automation Assessment.

At Maven X, we specialize in crafting custom automations to meet your business needs. If you’re interested in automating your business, check out our free Client Automation Assessment tool. This tool allows you to input your specific challenges and goals, and our AI generates tailored automation solutions for your business. It’s the perfect starting point to explore how automation can enhance your efficiency and success.

If any of the suggested automations are what you’re looking for, or if your automation is more complex, reach out to us at [email protected] to speak with our automation experts.

Closing.

Thank you for watching! We hope this video has inspired you to consider the benefits of automation for your business. Be sure to check out our other videos for more automation solutions and success stories.

Ready to take the next step? Visit our website in the description to try the Client Automation Assessment tool and discover the perfect automation for your needs and to contact us.

Until next time, happy automating!