---
title: Inside a cost group
canonical: "https://cloudmonitor.ai/docs/using-cloudmonitor/reports/inside-a-cost-group/"
description: "Everything about one team's spend in one place: costs, forecast, actions, resources, budget, members and history."
---

The full picture for one cost group. You get here by clicking a group anywhere it appears — the Cost
Groups report, a chart segment, a link someone sent you.

This is the page to open before a conversation with the team that owns the spend, because everything
they'll ask about is on it.

## Seven tabs

| Tab | What's on it |
|---|---|
| **Current FY** | The financial-year scorecard — spend to date, latest month, monthly budget, forecast |
| **Costs** | The group's spend broken down and over time |
| **Actions** | Savings opportunities and anomalies attributed to this group |
| **Resources** | What the group actually owns |
| **Governance** | Its budget |
| **Members** | Who's on the team, and in what role |
| **Audit trail** | What changed, when, and who did it |

## Current FY, in detail

Four figures lead: **Actual cost to date (FY)**, the latest month, the monthly budget, and this
month's forecast.

Below them, **Actual vs forecast** charts monthly spend against a **Budget line**, so you can see not
just whether you're over but when you started heading that way.

The **Cost group details** card carries the facts people ask for: **Monthly saving** available,
recommendation and anomaly counts, the owner, and **Created on**.

Then breakdowns by subscription, resource group and region.

The financial year here is your organization's, set under Settings ▸ Workspace Settings — not the
calendar year.

## The Period filter doesn't apply

This page reads the group's full history plus a financial-year scorecard, so a top-bar date range
would contradict what's on screen. CloudMonitor hides the Period chip rather than showing one that
does nothing.

The cost group chip is hidden too, for the obvious reason: you're already looking at one group.

Your cost basis still applies, and the card labels say which one they're using.

## What's read-only here

**Governance** shows the budget but doesn't edit it — budgets are managed under Settings ▸ Budgets so
there's one place they're created and changed.

**Members** shows the team but doesn't change it. **Manage team**, in the page header, is where that
happens — and only if you can manage the group.

Both are deliberate: this is a reporting page, and having two places to edit the same thing is how
they drift apart.

## Audit trail

Budget changes, membership changes, triage actions and team comments, with who and when.

This is the tab to open when someone asks why a budget moved, or why an anomaly was dismissed. It's
also why archiving a departing user is better than deleting them — deleting would leave holes here.

## If you can't open it

You need to be a member of the group, or an admin. Otherwise CloudMonitor says you don't have access
and points you at an admin or the group's owner. See
[Roles and access](/docs/reference/roles-and-permissions/).

## If the cost panels fail but the rest loads

You'll see a message saying the cost panels couldn't load while membership and ownership details are
unaffected. That's accurate rather than partial — the group's configuration comes from somewhere
different to its spend, so one can be unavailable while the other is fine.