Auto-Mapping: Guided Cost Allocation Setup

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Manually mapping every account and service combination to cost layers is tedious, especially in multi-account AWS environments. The Help me map wizard automates 80–90% of this setup by analysing your account names and applying a curated service classification library — getting you to a working cost layer structure in minutes rather than hours. Everything the wizard creates is non-destructive and editable — you review all mappings on the Sankey diagram before saving anything.

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Step 1 — Categorize your accounts

The wizard auto-categorizes each cloud account based on its name using keyword matching. Each account is assigned to one of these categories: The production vs. non-production distinction is fundamental to financial reporting. Production costs map to COGS (Cost of Goods Sold), while non-production costs are OpEx — and your forecast, savings analysis, and commitment proposals are all built on that structure. The keyword matching is designed around AWS Control Tower and Landing Zone naming conventions, as well as common SDLC patterns. Keywords are checked in a specific order so that terms like preprod match Staging (not Production) and devops matches Security & Operations (not Development). Review before proceeding — the wizard shows a summary of how many accounts fall into each category. Pay special attention to “shared services” or “infrastructure” accounts — these default to Security & Operations but may contain production workloads. Accounts with ambiguous names (numeric IDs, single words) default to Production; renaming those in AWS improves auto-detection accuracy in future runs.

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Step 2 — Organize production accounts

You can create sub-layers under the Production cost layer to organise production accounts by business line, product, or team. For example:

• Core Product — main customer-facing application
• Data Pipeline — ETL, analytics, ML infrastructure
• Internal Tools — admin dashboards, internal APIs

Each production account can then be assigned to a sub-layer, or left on Production directly. Sub-layers enable per-product-line cost tracking — essential if you price or forecast revenue for different products independently. Without sub-layers, all production spend pools together, making it harder to answer “how much does Product X cost to run?” This step is optional. Skip it if all your production accounts serve a single product — you can always add sub-layers later via the Cost Layers management page.

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Step 3 — Service cost breakdown

Choose whether to split production accounts by AWS service and auto-group them into service categories. Production service categories (under Production / COGS): Non-production service categories (under Non-Production / OpEx): You also choose which parent cost layers receive service categories. By default it’s the top-level Production layer, but you can multi-select — including any sub-layers created in Step 2. Two options:

• Yes, group by service — best for organisations that want visibility into what infrastructure types drive costs. Useful for engineering leaders optimising specific areas.
• No, keep it simple — best if you just need the Production vs. Non-Production split. Sufficient for high-level financial reporting and easier to manage.

The service classification covers approximately 200 AWS services, including popular AWS Marketplace vendors (Datadog, Snowflake, MongoDB, and others). Services outside the classification library land in an “All Other” bucket that you can manually sort afterwards.

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What happens when you apply

When you click Apply mapping, the wizard:

1. Creates service category cost layers (Compute, Database & Storage, etc.) under the selected parent layers
2. Creates any production sub-layers you defined in Step 2
3. Assigns non-production accounts to their category layer; production accounts go to their sub-layer or the production pool
4. Splits production accounts by service (if enabled) and auto-assigns each to its category
5. Reports what percentage of services were successfully auto-mapped

After applying, you review the full mapping on the Sankey diagram. Nothing is saved until you click Save Changes in the toolbar. You can adjust any mapping, reassign services, or click Undo to Saved to reverse the wizard entirely.

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Auto-mapping individual nodes

Even after the wizard completes, you can apply service auto-mapping to any assigned leaf node in the Sankey diagram by clicking the tree icon on that node. A preview panel opens showing which service categories will be created, how much spend falls into each, and a breakdown preview before you commit. This is useful for:

• Accounts that were mapped manually rather than through the wizard
• Applying service breakdowns to new accounts added after the initial setup
• Refining specific sub-layers with more granular service visibility

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Best practices

1. Start with Help me map — even if you plan to customise heavily, the wizard creates a solid foundation in minutes
2. Review before saving — verify account categorisations match your organisational structure before clicking Save
3. Default “Not Sure” to Production — this is intentional; review and reclassify rather than risk missing production costs
4. Use sub-layers for multi-product organisations — if you have distinct product lines with independent P&Ls, sub-layers make cost tracking far more useful
5. Enable service grouping — the extra visibility into Compute vs. Database vs. Networking costs is valuable for both engineering optimisation and finance reporting
6. Iterate — auto-mapping gets you 80–90% of the way; use the Sankey diagram to refine the rest
7. Name your accounts well — following AWS Control Tower or Landing Zone naming conventions significantly improves auto-categorisation accuracy

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