The problem FOCUS solves
An Azure bill, an AWS Cost and Usage Report and a Google Cloud export don't speak the same language: column names, amortized cost, discounts, commitments, everything differs. Consolidating several clouds took weeks of reprocessing, and every FinOps tool reinvented its own normalization.
FOCUS sets a common vocabulary. The same column means the same thing everywhere.
A few key columns
| Column | What it contains |
|---|---|
| BilledCost | The amount invoiced |
| EffectiveCost | The real cost once commitments are amortized: the right basis for allocation |
| ListCost | The cost at list price, to measure discounts |
| ChargeCategory | Usage, purchase, tax, credit, adjustment |
| ServiceName, ServiceCategory | The service and its family (compute, storage, database…) |
| ResourceId, Tags | The resource and its tags, to map it to applications |
| CommitmentDiscountId | The reservation or savings plan that applies |
Versions
- 1.0 (2024): the first stable version, focused on public cloud.
- 1.1 (late 2024): clarifications and new columns.
- 1.2 (2025): SaaS and PaaS integration, and reconciliation with invoices.
- 1.3: splitting shared costs (for example Kubernetes pods) and tracking contract commitments.
- 1.4 (2026): invoice detail and billing period datasets, to reconcile usage with invoices.
Who supports it
The FinOps Foundation lists about twenty FOCUS data generators, including Microsoft Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, as well as Databricks, Snowflake and OVHcloud. On Azure, the FOCUS export is configured in Cost Management; on AWS, in Data Exports.
How to adopt it
- Turn on the daily FOCUS export with each provider.
- Build the dashboard on this single format rather than on each proprietary format.
- Map costs to the CMDB through tags, as for everything else.
- Require FOCUS support from any FinOps tool you evaluate.
Our free analysis tool already reads Azure exports in FOCUS format.