Assign Google Cloud customers to their billing subaccounts

Assign your customers to their billing subaccounts that you created in the Google Cloud console. Then you can manage billing subaccounts by customer, search customers by name or domain, and close unused billing subaccounts.

Assigning a customer doesn't affect the billing subaccount's permissions, projects, or billing linkage to the parent Cloud Billing account. Also, no notifications are sent to the customer or users of the billing subaccount.

About customers

The Partner Sales Console gives you tools to manage customers, create billing subaccounts, and manage permissions.

• Customer account—In the Partner Sales Console, you create a customer account and add the customer's information: name, domain, and address.

• Subscriptions and billing subaccounts—When you assign customers to their billing subaccounts, each billing account is listed as a Google Cloud subscription. To create a billing subaccount for a customer, you order a Google Cloud subscription.
• Using the Google Cloud console and Partner Sales Console—Use the Partner Sales Console to create billing subaccounts and manage permissions. From a customer's account, you can open the billing subaccount in the Google Cloud console, or copy the billing subaccount ID.

Assign customers to their billing subaccounts

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Prepare permissions & gather information

1. Set up roles and permissions

To assign billing subaccounts to customers, you need two roles

• The Billing Account Administrator role, or both the billing.accounts.get and billing.accounts.update permissions on your parent reseller billing accounts. Your Billing Account Administrator role and permissions must be assigned at the Organizational level. If you can't sign in to the Partner Sales Console, the role or permissions might be inherited through a project or resource.
   
• The Google Cloud Reseller Admin or super admin role in the Partner Sales Console. Google Cloud Reseller Admins can view and assign all unassigned billing subaccounts. However, to close a billing subaccount, the Google Cloud Reseller Admin must have permissions on the parent account of the billing subaccount. Learn how to assign the Google Cloud Reseller Admin role

2. Prepare customer information

In the Partner Sales Console, you create an account for your customer. Check that you have access to contact information for each customer, including:

• Customer's billing subaccount IDs
• Customer name
• Domain name
• Mailing address
• Administrator contact (email address)

3. Review your billing accounts (optional)

1. Sign in to the Partner Sales Console with your Cloud Identity or Google Workspace super administrator account.
2. Go to the Billing page.
3. Click Invoices. Confirm that your Cloud Billing accounts are listed in the console.

Connect a billing subaccount to a customer

To get familiar with the console, you might start by connecting one billing subaccount to a customer.

1. Permissions required: The GCP Reseller administrator role and the billing.accounts.close permission on your reseller parent Cloud Billing accounts. Learn more.

2. From the home page, click Billing > Unassigned subaccounts.

   The Unassigned Subaccounts page lists billing subaccounts that aren't assigned to a customer account.

   

3. In the row for a billing subaccount, click the Customer field then Create customer. Or if you already created accounts for your customers, enter the first few letters and select the account.

   

   A customer might have multiple billing accounts that use the same domain name. When you assign a billing subaccount, the suggested matches include the Cloud Identity ID to help you identify an account.

   

4. On the Create New GCP Customer page, enter the customer's information.
5. Click Save & Continue.

6. Click Submit to assign the billing subaccount to the customer's account. To cancel, click Close next to the customer's name.

   

7. Next, view the customer's account in the console. On the left, click Customers.
8. On the Customers page, click the customer's name to view their account. Or in Search , enter the customer's name or domain, and press Return.

Learn about assigning permissions and creating billing subaccounts in the Partner Sales Console.

Close billing subaccounts

You can close any unused billing subaccounts in the Unassigned subaccounts list.

Requirements

• The billing subaccount is unassigned.
• The billing subaccount isn't linked to any active projects.
• You have the Google Cloud Reseller Admin role and permissions on the parent billing account for the billing subaccount. (Google Cloud Reseller Admins can view all unassigned billing subaccounts.)

Close a billing subaccount

1. From the home page, click Billing > Unassigned subaccounts.

   The Unassigned Billing Subaccounts page lists all of your organization's billing subaccounts that aren't connected to a customer account.
   
   

2. To close a billing subaccount, click Trash . (You can also close a billing subaccount that's connected to a customer. Learn more)

3. Click Continue. Repeat for each billing subaccount you want to close.

The closed accounts are removed from the Partner Sales Console. In the Google Cloud console, the billing subaccount status changes to Closed.

Connect billing subaccounts in bulk

To connect large numbers of billing subacccounts, use a spreadsheet (TSV format) to upload your customer information in bulk.

Important: To avoid possible conflicts, only one administrator at a time should manage the bulk assignment.

1. Permissions required: The GCP Reseller administrator role and the billing.accounts.close permission on your reseller parent Cloud Billing accounts. Learn more.

2. From the home page, click Billing > Unassigned subaccounts.

   

3. Click Bulk assign and then Download list.

   

4. Open and save the TSV file (unassigned-subaccounts- [date].tsv) in a spreadsheet editor. The TSV file is currently available in English.
5. Open your file. Each unassigned billing subaccount includes:
   • Master Account (reseller parent biling account)
   • Master Account ID
   • Billing Subaccount (name)
   • Billing Subaccount ID
6. Add the customer information for each billing subaccount. For subaccounts you don't want to connect yet (for example, you need to confirm the customer's contact information), remove or leave the row empty.

Required fields	Customer information to add
Organization Name	Customer's company or organization. In the Partner Sales Console, you search for customers by organization or domain.
Domain	The unique identifier for a customer account. A domain name can use the Latin alphabet, numbers 1–10, and the hyphen character. You can use a subdomain, for example, sales.company.jp.
Street Address
City
Postal Code	Zip code or postal code if applicable. Otherwise, leave blank.
State	State, prefecture, county, or province
Country	Country or region. Use the full name (not abbreviation or country code)

You can add customer contact information that appears in the Partner Sales Console (no Google Cloud notifications are sent to the contact).

 

Optional fields	Customer information to add
Email	Enter an email address that uses the company's domain name.
Alternate Email	An email address that doesn't use the company's domain name.
First name	Email contact's first name
Last name	Email contact's last name
Phone	Phone number (Include the country code)

 

7. After you add the customer information, save or download the spreadsheet as a TSV file.

8. On the Unassigned Billing Subaccounts page, click Bulk UpdateUpload list and select your TSV file.
9. Review alerts or error messages. If needed, update and upload the TSV file.
10. Click Submit. When the billing subaccounts are connected, they no longer appear the Unassigned Billing Subaccounts page.
    
    To change or remove a connected subaccount from a customer, contact Google support for assistance.
11. On the Customers page, click the customer's name to view their account. Or in Search , enter the customer's name or domain, and press Return.

Learn about assigning permissions and creating billing subaccounts in the Partner Sales Console.

Troubleshooting & FAQ

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Troubleshoot alerts & errors

Common alerts for customers who have multiple billing subaccounts. No action necessary.

• Duplicate Customer with domain example.com found in the TSV
  Your customer with the domain <example.com> has multiple subaccounts. If the TSV file contains different customer information (such as the mailing address) for the same domain, the first instance is used to create the customer account.
• Customer with domain example.com exists
  Shown if you already created a customer account for the domain. All billing subaccounts with same domain are assigned to the customer. The customer contact information in the TSV file (such as email address or phone number) won't overwrite the existing customer information, but should be in correct format.

Errors messages that require changes or fixes to the TSV file:

• Primary contact email should use the same domain as the customer domain
  Update the domain in the Email field to match the Domain field.
• Billing subaccount <number>is already mapped to a Customer.
  Remove the row from the TSV file or leave the row empty.
• Billing subaccount <number> not found.
  Check if the billing subaccount is closed or the billing subaccount number was changed in the TSV file.
• Duplicate Billing Subaccounts are not allowed in a TSV
  Check the TSV file for a duplicate billing subaccount. If needed, repeat the download of the TSV file.
• Found unsupported column name in TSV
  Check the TSV file for removed or added columns. If needed, repeat the download of the TSV file and add your information for the billing subaccounts.

When do billing subaccounts created in the Google Cloud console appear in the Partner Sales Console?

A billing subaccount created in Google Cloud console appears in Partner Sales Console Unassigned Billing Subaccounts page within few minutes.

How do I change the assignment of a billing subaccount?

Contact Google support for help with reassigning a billing subaccount to a customer. If a billing subaccount was unintentionally connected a different customer, this won't affect the billing subaccount's permissions, links to projects, or billing linkage to a primary Cloud Billing account.