Retrieving usage reports after migrating accounts between AWS Organizations

1. Scenario

Member accounts of AWS Organizations have their spend and usage data, such as Cost Explorer and Cost and Usage Reports (CUR), stored within their Organization's management account. When these accounts are migrated to another AWS Organization, a new usage history will begin in the destination organization.

For the end user, after the migration, their Cost Explorer or CUR reports will show no historic data. When this goes unnoticed for a long period and the change occurred closer to the middle of the month, users may also have the wrong impression that the account in question had an usage spike, especially if they look at monthly reports.

After migrating:

Before migrating:

2. Solution

Currently, the AWS Organizations service doesn't migrate individual accounts' usage history when moving them between organizations. However, it's still possible to retrieve previous data by accessing the management account of the older organization.

For Cost Explorer, using the previous management account, you can simply expand the Filters menu and select the migrated account under Linked account. Usage metrics prior to the migration will be visible. From there, you can export individual reports as CSV files.

As for Cost and Usage Report (CUR), you can copy the CUR files from the previous organization. They are stored in a S3 bucket, therefore, you can replicate the objects to the management account of the new organization. You can refer to instructions about setting up rules to replicate objects between buckets.

3. Conclusion

Although migrating accounts between organizations requires a number of early steps to conduct the change, it's also important to be aware of the impact to your reporting requirements and be prepared.

Contact our support teams by creating a case if you need guidance with any of the services described above.