If team members under a shared funding source need to be able to create their own Terra Billing project or view detailed cost breakdowns, the GCP Billing account Owner will need to add the user to the Billing account on GCP console. This article walks through those steps.
GCP costs and billing in Terra
Operations in Terra - such as running workflows or interactive analysis tools (Jupyter Notebooks or RStudio), and accessing and storing data -will incur Google Cloud Platform (GCP) storage, egress and compute charges, which Terra passes along with no markup via a Terra billing project. Ultimately, all costs in Terra are paid for by a GCP Billing account:
What can GCP Billing account users do?
GCP billing account users can create billing projects in Terra by going to "Billing" from the main navigation menu. If they have Owner or Admin privileges, they will be able to see detailed billing and costs reports directly on GCP console.
What are the advantages of adding collaborators to a GCP Billing account?
This approach shares responsibility for billing and gives additional users (beyond the PI, for example) more control over billing and costs.
What are the disadvantages to adding collaborators to a GCP billing account?
Because billing account users have more control, the process of removing them is a bit more involved. For example, you will need to remove or disable all billing projects created by the user, though you will not necessarily be familiar with those projects (they will show up in your Billing page, however).
Add users to a GCP Billing account (step-by-step)
1. Go to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) "Billing" -> "Manage Billing" at https://console.cloud.google.com/billing and
2. Select the Billing Account to add the user to and click the Add Members button on the right:
3. Add member(s) and choose how much access they have (their role):
Once on the billing account, they will be able to create billing projects in Terra by going to "Billing" from the main navigation menu:
and clicking on the blue "+" icon:
How to control costs when a Billing account User leaves the group When you no longer want someone to be able to create Billing projects or access billing reports and cost breakdowns on GCP, you will need to remove them from the Billing account on GCP.
Note that to control spend, you will also need to disable billing on any workspaces they created. To learn more, see Best practices for managing shared team resources.
How to remove users from a GCP BIlling Account
1. Start at "Billing" (https://console.cloud.google.com/billing).
2. Select the Billing account from the list.
3. Select Manage (at top right) beside "Billing account").
4. Expand the principal role and select the pencil (edit icon) beside the user to remove, then follow the instructions.
Once you complete these steps, they will immediately be unable to create new projects in Terra funded by the Cloud Billing account.