Managing your AWS Marketplace spend with purchase order features

AWS customers often use purchase orders (POs) to track, manage, pay for, and forecast purchases across their supply base. My customers tell me they want their invoices to reflect the proper purchase order to avoid other chargeback mechanisms, manual processing, and unneeded delay in payment processing. By using purchase order features in AWS Marketplace and the AWS Billing and Cost Management console (Billing and Cost Management), you can receive invoices from AWS that reflect the applicable, customer-defined purchase order number. This helps you streamline payment processing and cost allocation.

In this blog post, Soumya and I will explain AWS Marketplace invoicing basics, answer frequently asked questions about billing, and show how to enable and use AWS purchase order features.

Types of AWS invoices

AWS provides you with AWS Marketplace invoices for AWS Marketplace purchases and AWS Cloud invoices for cloud services. Invoices for AWS Marketplace purchases are further broken down into:

1. Consolidated AWS Marketplace monthly usage invoices. These invoices reflect usage (pay-as-you-go) charges that have accumulated over a monthly basis for the payer (management) account and associated member accounts. If you have subscribed to Amazon products and third-party products, you will receive up to two AWS Monthly usage invoices per month. These charges appear in the Billing and Cost Management console with a charge type Usage.
2. Out-of-cycle invoices for one-time fees or payment schedules. Subscriptions with one-time fees, recurring fees, or payment schedules are billed out-of-cycle, separately from the AWS Marketplace monthly usage invoices. Many of the transactions resulting in out-of-cycle invoices are eligible for AWS Marketplace transaction purchase orders. These charges appear in the Billing and Cost Management console with a charge type Subscription.

Managing your AWS Marketplace spend with purchase order features

A. Frequently-asked questions

1. How do I use one purchase order for all charges, including AWS Marketplace?
   • To use a single PO number for all AWS charges in a given time period, in the Billing and Cost Management console, add a PO with the line-item type set to all. To do that, follow the directions for Adding a purchase order here and on step 16, for line-item type, choose All.
   • Change the status of any purchase orders you do not want associated with future invoices to inactive. To do that, go to Editing a purchase order here. Go to To change the status of your purchase order and follow steps 1-5. On step 4, choose Change status and follow the remaining steps.
   • You can add multiple lines to a single PO, with specific dollar amount and line-item types per PO line.
2.  How do I prevent AWS Marketplace purchases from drawing down my existing AWS purchase order(s)?

To isolate AWS Marketplace charges from existing purchase orders, in the Billing and Cost Management console, add a dedicated PO with the line-item type AWS Marketplace Blanket Usage by following steps D.1-7. This PO will associate with your AWS Marketplace invoices before any other POs that are used for other AWS charges.

3. Can I have unique POs per transaction for AWS Marketplace purchases?

Adding a transaction PO for AWS Marketplace is useful if you have a dedicated purchase order that you want to reflect on out-of-cycle invoices related to that transaction. You can use transaction POs for the following products in AWS Marketplace:

• • • SaaS Contracts
    • Professional Service Products
    • Server products, including AMIs, containers, Cloud Formation Templates, and Helm-charts with an annual or contract pricing model
    • Purchase order support for annual pricing models is only supported for private offers with a flexible payment schedule.

1. 1. For supported products

• • • Enable the AWS Marketplace PO feature by following the instructions in step B.
    • When subscribing to supported products in AWS Marketplace, add a PO in the Add a purchase order field. That will reflect on all out-of-cycle invoices associated with that transaction. To add a PO, follow steps B.1-4 and C.1-3.
    • POs for a particular transaction in AWS Marketplace cannot be manually added in the Billing and Cost Management console. They can only be added after the feature is enabled, while subscribing in AWS Marketplace. If you enter a PO that matches a PO in the Billing and Cost Management console while subscribing in AWS Marketplace, a new line item will be added to the PO in the Billing and Cost Management console. Otherwise, a new PO will appear in the billing console with an AWS Marketplace transaction line-item type.

• 2. For usage-based charges

• • • Some AWS Marketplace products also include usage-based charges in addition to a one-time fee or payment schedule.
    • For usage-based charges, or transactions where a PO is not added in AWS Marketplace, in the Billing and Cost Management console, consider creating an AWS Marketplace Blanket Usage purchase order. This prevents AWS Marketplace charges from drawing down other AWS POs. To create an AWS Marketplace blanket usage PO, follow the instructions in step D.

4. I forgot to add my purchase order when buying in AWS Marketplace/I need to change a PO. What do I do?

Submit a ticket to AWS Support with the invoice that has the incorrect PO and specify the new PO that you want on the invoice.

B. Enable the AWS Marketplace transaction Purchase Order feature

To enable this feature, do the following:

1. Log into your AWS Organizations’ payer (management) account.
2. Navigate to the AWS Marketplace console Settings page.
3. Select Configure integration for Billing and Cost Management integration.
4. Check the box next to Enable AWS Marketplace for your billing. In the lower right, choose Create integration.

This integration creates an AWS Billing service-linked role, which grants AWS Marketplace permissions to add or modify PO numbers within the Billing and Cost Management console. Enabling this feature from the management (payer) account is a one-time set-up step that grants permission for all linked accounts in your AWS Organization.

C. How to use the AWS Marketplace PO feature to add a transaction PO

To add a transaction PO, do the following:

1. In AWS Marketplace, for your chosen product, review the contract duration, payment schedule, and End User License Agreement (EULA).
2. On the product checkout page lower right, in the Purchase order field, enter a PO number. I entered 05652.
3. In the upper right, choose Create contract. This creates a transaction PO in the PO tab of the Billing and Cost Management console. That tab now reflects all out-of-cycle invoices related to this transaction. If your purchase has future payments, such as a SaaS Private Offer with a Flexible Payment Schedule, the invoice for each payment will display the PO number you enter at the time of the transaction.

I entered the PO number 05652 for my latest transaction. The following screenshot shows the Purchase Orders tab of the Billing and Cost Management console with PO 05652 selected. It shows the PO details, including bill to, ship to, bill from, status, expiration date, and four line items.

D. How to add an AWS blanket usage PO using the Billing and Cost Management console PO feature

To isolate any AWS Marketplace charges from POs used for other AWS spend that do not have an AWS Marketplace transaction PO, in the Billing and Cost Management console, you can create a PO with an AWS Marketplace Blanket usage line-item type.

These POs are especially helpful for any pay-as-you go charges, as those are not eligible for AWS Marketplace transaction POs. You can read more about Billing and Cost Management console permissions here. You can ask your administrator to grant you access.

To add an AWS blanket usage PO, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Billing and Cost Management console. In the left navigation, choose Purchase orders.
2. Choose Add purchase order.
3. For Purchase order ID, enter a unique PO number. For Bill from, choose the Amazon Web Services Inc. and Amazon Web Services EMEA SARL. For Ship to, enter your address.
4. For Effective month, choose the current month. Set the Expiration month to a date in the future you that want the PO to remain active until.
5. For Purchase order contacts – optional, enter your email id in the Email address. Choose Next.
6. In Configure line items for Line item number, enter a unique identifier. For Line item type, choose AWS Marketplace Blanket Usage. Choose Start month as the current month and End month to a date in the future.
7. Choose Submit purchase order.

Learn more about adding a PO in the billing console.

Conclusion

In this blog post, Soumya and I showed you how to use the Billing and Cost Management console and AWS Marketplace purchase order features to help ensure your invoices for AWS Marketplace purchases reflect the proper PO. After enabling the transaction purchase order feature in the AWS Marketplace console, AWS accounts in your AWS organization with permission to subscribe can add specific purchase orders for AWS Marketplace transactions during procurement.

Next steps

• Start by signing into the management account in your AWS Organization and activating the transaction PO feature in AWS Marketplace settings by following the instructions in step B. Then add the appropriate POs in the Billing and Cost Management console.
• To learn more, try the cost management lab for purchase orders. For more information, including troubleshooting scenarios, refer to the AWS Marketplace Buyer Guide. For more information on adding a purchase order in the Billing and Cost Management console, refer to Managing your purchase orders.
• To view a tutorial video of this process, view Managing your AWS Marketplace spend with purchase order features.

About the authors

Ryan Wernli is a Senior Product Manager – Technical that works to improve AWS Marketplace buyer experiences with private offers and cost management.

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Soumya Vanga is a Specialist Solutions Architect focusing on AWS Marketplace helping customers govern their cloud environments. Outside of work, she enjoys building Legos and cycling with her kids.