Financial trusteeship overview

What is financial trusteeship?

Financial trusteeship allows one account to delegate the management of its funds, bills, and invoices to another account. The managing account handles all financial activities, while the delegating account retains permissions only for placing orders, viewing consumption data, and managing resources.

In Enterprise Management, you can set the settlement policy for an associated account to "financial trusteeship." This makes the associated account a managed member account, with its finances managed by the management account.

On the legacy feature interface (The legacy version is no longer updated. Please upgrade to the new version), in the Relationship/Permission Configuration step on the Invite Associated Account page, if you set Relationship Type to Corporate Group Relationship, you can select Financial Trusteeship or Financial Management for Relationship Policy. After you make a selection, you must read and agree to the Financial Trusteeship Agreement and the Corporate Finance Function Activation Agreement.

In the new version interface:

On the Account Details page, the Basic Information section shows details like the enterprise, organizational unit name, and account name. In the Advanced Configuration section, you can manage the Account Role and Financial Settlement Policy (shown here as financial trusteeship). You can also view information about the management account. The page also includes options like Unbind MAA and Account Security Configuration.

What does financial trusteeship cover?

After you establish a "financial trusteeship" relationship between a management account and a member account:

• The management account pays for the prepaid orders and pay-as-you-go bills of the member account. Service availability for the member account depends solely on the available credit of the management account.

• All orders and bills from the member account are automatically consolidated under the management account.

• All invoices for the member account are consolidated and issued by the management account.

• All consumption and spending data from the member account are consolidated under the management account.

• In the legacy version, the member account inherited the discounts of the management account. In the new version, if entity-level discounts are not configured, new managed member accounts only use their own discount policies and do not share the discounts of the management account. Only after entity-level discounts are configured will new managed member accounts share the management account's discounts. Existing managed member accounts that were set up before the upgrade to the new version will continue to share the management account's discounts.

• After trusteeship is enabled, the member account's remaining balance is no longer used for payments. You can withdraw this balance.

Key considerations for financial trusteeship

1. Cost allocation is not performed for the expenses of a managed member account. All bills are consolidated under the management account, and the member account does not receive separate bills.

2. Available Credit Alert and spending alerts are sent to the management account, not the managed member account. All alerts are based on the management account's consumption and available credit.

3. The management account does not allocate funds to the managed member account, as it pays for the member's expenses directly.

4. In the legacy version, a managed member account used the discounts of the management account for orders and billing (except for Alibaba Cloud Communications, which used the member account's own discounts). In the new version, if entity-level discounts are not configured, new managed member accounts only use their own discount policies and do not share the discounts of the management account. Only after entity-level discounts are configured will new managed member accounts share the management account's discounts. Existing managed member accounts that were set up before the upgrade to the new version will continue to share the management account's discounts.

5. A managed member account does not participate in consolidated billing because its expenses are already paid by the management account.

6. Financial trusteeship takes effect from the next billing cycle. For example, for a product billed daily, if you establish or change a trusteeship relationship on a given day, the bill for that day is still charged to the member account or the previous management account. The bill for the following day will be charged to the new management account, and its discounts will apply. The same logic applies to products billed hourly, by the minute, weekly, or monthly.

7. A managed member account's vouchers and stored value cards cannot be used. By default, the management account shares its vouchers and stored value cards with all its managed member accounts.

8. A member account's coupons can only be used by that account and cannot be shared.

9. After a member account's billing relationship is set or changed to hosting, the time when the hosting relationship takes effect may vary depending on whether the account has unsettled bills. You can filter by "Payment Status" on the Billing Details page to view bills with an "Unsettled" status.

   If there are pre-issued "Unsettled" bills for a product, the full consumption for that product within the current billing cycle is still paid by the member account or the previous management account. Consumption from the next billing cycle will be paid by the new management account.

   If there are no "Unsettled" bills, the change takes effect within the current billing cycle. Bills generated before the change are paid by the member account or the previous management account. Bills generated at or after the change are paid by the new management account.

   Example: The trusteeship is set or modified at 09:23 on January 3, 2023. Scenario 1: Before 09:23 on January 3, 2023, Product A has a pre-issued "Unsettled" bill. For the managed member account, the bill for Product A in the January 2023 billing cycle is still paid by the member account or the previous management account. The bill for Product A in the February 2023 billing cycle will be paid by the new management account.

   Scenario 2: Before 09:23 on January 3, 2023, Product B has no pre-issued "Unsettled" bills. For the managed member account, in the January 2023 billing cycle, bills for Product B with a consumption end time before 09:23 on January 3, 2023 are paid by the member account or the previous management account. Bills for Product B with a consumption end time at or after 09:23 on January 3, 2023 are paid by the new management account.

Additional notes

1. For postpaid services still within the current billing cycle, trusteeship will take effect from the next billing cycle. The member account is responsible for charges in the current cycle. You must ensure the member account has a positive available balance before you can associate it.

2. When you associate or disassociate a member account that has active prepaid resources, ownership of the remaining resource term is transferred: to the management account upon association and back to the member account upon disassociation. However, this transfer only applies to the remaining usage period. These resources have no financial value, meaning you cannot receive a refund for downgrading or terminating them during this period.

3. Price adjustments are not supported for prepaid orders from a managed member account. Contact your account manager for assistance.

4. Financial trusteeship requires all accounts to belong to the same enterprise entity. Once a trusteeship relationship is established, you cannot change the real-name verification of the accounts. If you must change the account verification, first end the trusteeship relationship.

5. A management account can have a maximum of 300 managed member accounts.

Inherited benefits

Automatically inherited benefits

Contract discounts: When you use the legacy Enterprise Finance for financial trusteeship, the member account automatically inherits the contract discounts of the management account without any extra steps.

Manually shared benefits

When you set up financial trusteeship, the management account must manually share the following benefits with its member accounts.

• Coupons and vouchers:

  Log in to the Account Sharing page, click Rights and Assets Sharing, and in the row for the Asset Type Coupon, click Edit in the Actions column. In the dialog box, Configure Sharing. You can choose to share with specific accounts or with an organizational unit.

  If you want to generate vouchers and allocate them to specific accounts, see Apply for Voucher Quota Pool.

  Note

  The voucher quota pool is only available to customers who have activated the Enterprise Account Center. To learn how to activate it, see What is Enterprise Account Center. After activation, you can contact your account manager to apply for a voucher quota pool.

• Resource packs:

  Log in to the Account Sharing page, click Rights and Assets Sharing, and in the row for the Asset Type reserved instance or SCU package, click Edit in the Actions column. In the dialog box, Configure Sharing. You can choose to share with specific accounts or with an organizational unit.

• Savings plans:

  Log in to the Account Sharing page, click Rights and Assets Sharing, and in the row for the Asset Type savings plan, click Edit in the Actions column. In the dialog box, Configure Sharing. You can choose to share with specific accounts or with an organizational unit.