I tend to find AWS quite a bit more complicated and laborious than Azure, I hope to change my opinion on this eventually, but for now, that still rings true. For those of us who utilise Managed Accounts, and specifically for larger organisations where Consolidated Billing has been enabled, it’s quite challenging to find all the information required to delete an account.
This article will cover the process from start to finish.
The Process
There are 2 main prerequisites before we’ll be able to remove the Account from the organisation the first is to have a default payment method added to the Account to be removed, and the other is to have a verified contact number.
Adding a payment method is quite straightforward, however, in order to verify the contact details you’ll need to create a support request.
Default Payment Method
- Log in to the Managed Account using an IAM or root user depending on your configuration.
- Navigate to the ‘Billing’ service.
- In the left-hand navigation, select ‘Payment preferences’.
- Click ‘Add payment method’ if there’s no existing method added, then follow the guided process.
- If there is an existing payment method, ensure it is set as the default.
Verified Contact Number
- Similar to above, log in to the Managed Account that is to be removed.
- Navigate to the ‘Account’ page by clicking the logged in users name at the top right then selecting ‘Account’ in the dropdown.
- Edit the information under the ‘Contact information’ section, ensuring that the Phone number is accurate and accessible, AWS support will call you at this number to verify it.
- Navigate to the ‘Support’ service and select the ‘Create case’ option.
- You’ll want to select ‘Account and billing’ and then set the service to Billing, and the Category to ‘Update Billing Details’,
- Add a descriptive Subject and description, select Next and then select the ‘Contact Us’ tab.
- Ideally, select the Chat option to be instantly connected to a representative who can contact you straight away, otherwise, they’re likely to respond by email requesting a time to call.
- Wait for the AWS agent to call you, read out the Account Number on the phone and they’ll verify the number within a minute or so.
Removing the Account from the Organisation
Once there are payment details and a confirmed number, it’s time to sign in to the Organisational account which manages the account to be removed, this tends to be a root account or IAM user.
- Navigate to the ‘AWS Organizations’ service.
- Find the Managed Account that’s to be removed in the Organizational Structure.
- Select it then select the ‘Remove from organization’ option in the Actions menu.
- Confirm the removal, at which point it will tell you if there is anything further missing, if not it is now removed (but not deleted) from the Organization.
Deleting the Account
We’re at the home stretch now and getting close to deleting an account.
- Sign back into the Managed Account, this time ensuring that you sign in as the root user.
- Navigate to the ‘Account’ page by clicking the root users name at the top-right then selecting ‘Account’ in the menu.
- Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page, read the warnings and then click the ‘Close account’ button.
… and we’re done!