Cost adjustment

Overview

Cost adjustment applies a custom percentage increase to a cost management group's displayed Azure spend. It lets Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and internal finance teams layer billing markups, service fees, or chargeback rates on top of raw Azure costs without modifying the underlying cost data.

Business value

Raw Azure spend rarely reflects what a business actually bills or allocates internally. MSPs need to apply client-specific markups; internal IT teams need to add overhead charges before cross-charging departments. Cost adjustment makes these calculations visible in Cost Analyzer directly, so teams can report on fully-loaded costs without maintaining a separate spreadsheet.

Prerequisites

Required permissions

Cost adjustment is restricted to the Account Owner role. No other role, including Owner and Contributor, can access or modify cost adjustment settings.

A cost management group must exist before cost adjustment can be configured.

How it works

Cost adjustment is configured per cost management group. When enabled, the specified percentage is applied to all cost figures displayed for that group, including the Essentials summary, dashboard widgets, and any cost views scoped to the group. The adjustment applies to displayed figures only. The underlying Azure cost data is not modified.

The Apply for child groups option propagates the adjustment percentage to all child groups under the configured group, overriding any individual cost adjustment settings those child groups may have. This is useful for MSP scenarios where a single markup rate applies across an entire client hierarchy.

Cost adjustment applies immediately after saving. All cost data displayed for the group reflects the adjusted figures from that point forward, including the current month's data.

Steps

Open Cost adjustment from the cost management group's context menu in the tree view. Only the Account Owner sees this option.

Enable cost adjustment

Enabling cost adjustment applies a percentage markup to all cost figures displayed for the group.

Click the Context menu ( ⋮ ) next to the cost management group in the tree view.
Select Cost adjustment.
Enable the toggle.
Enter the adjustment percentage to apply.
Optionally enable Apply for child groups to propagate the adjustment to all child groups, overriding their individual settings.
Click Save.

Disable cost adjustment

Disabling cost adjustment removes the markup and restores displayed costs to the original Azure figures.

Click the Context menu ( ⋮ ) next to the cost management group in the tree view.
Select Cost adjustment.
Disable the toggle.
Click Save.

Example scenario

Contoso is an MSP managing Azure costs for three client organizations. Each client's subscriptions are scoped to a dedicated child group under a parent group called Contoso MSP. After agreeing a 15% service fee with Client B, the account owner opens the Client B group, selects Cost adjustment, sets 15%, and enables Apply for child groups. All cost figures displayed for Client B and its sub-groups now reflect the markup. When Contoso renegotiates the rate to 12% the following quarter, updating the parent group's adjustment automatically propagates the new rate across all child groups.

Limitations

Cost adjustment is available to the Account Owner role only. It cannot be delegated to any other role.
The adjustment is applied to displayed cost figures only. It does not affect the underlying Azure billing data or the data imported from Azure Cost Management.
Enabling Apply for child groups overrides all individual cost adjustment settings on child groups. Those individual settings cannot be recovered after the override is applied. They must be reconfigured manually if the parent adjustment is later disabled.
Cost adjustment percentage cannot be set to zero to neutralize a previous adjustment. Disable the toggle instead.

Troubleshooting

Cost adjustment option is not visible in the context menu
Cause: Only the Account Owner role can access Cost adjustment. Owner and Contributor roles do not have access.
Fix: Confirm you are signed in as the Account Owner. If the option is still absent, contact your Turbo360 administrator to verify your role assignment.
Child group cost figures did not update after enabling Apply for child groups
Cause: The child group may have had an individual cost adjustment override that was not immediately replaced, or the dashboard is showing cached data.
Fix: Open each child group and verify the cost adjustment settings reflect the parent value. If the figures still appear stale, click Reset cached data in the group's Essentials section.
Displayed costs look incorrect after saving a cost adjustment
Cause: The dashboard may be serving cached cost data that predates the adjustment.
Fix: Click Reset cached data to force a refresh. The adjusted figures should appear immediately after the cache resets.
Apply for child groups was enabled but a specific child group still shows the old rate
Cause: The child group may have a separately configured adjustment that was applied after the parent propagation.
Fix: Open the child group's Cost adjustment settings and verify the current percentage. Re-apply from the parent group if the child value has drifted.
Cost adjustment was disabled but costs still appear adjusted
Cause: The dashboard cache has not yet refreshed since the adjustment was disabled.
Fix: Click Reset cached data in the group's Essentials section to force a reload of the current, unadjusted figures.

FAQs

Does cost adjustment apply to historical data or only from the date it was enabled?
Cost adjustment applies to all cost data displayed for the group, including historical months. It is not applied from a specific date. All displayed figures reflect the adjusted percentage regardless of when the costs were incurred.
What happens to child group adjustments if I disable Apply for child groups on the parent?
Disabling Apply for child groups on the parent stops future propagation, but does not restore the child groups' previous individual settings. The child groups retain the parent's rate until each is individually updated.
Can I apply different adjustment rates to different child groups?
Yes. Configure cost adjustment individually on each child group without enabling Apply for child groups on the parent. Each group will display its own rate independently.