> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.btsscorp.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# How it works

> The ingest-to-insight pipeline, and why every number is evidence-backed

Koala AI FinOps turns raw cloud billing exports into a single, explainable view of your spend. The pipeline is the same for every cloud.

<Steps>
  <Step title="Connect">
    Point Koala at each cloud's cost export — OCI Object Storage, AWS S3, Azure Blob, or GCP BigQuery — or upload a file directly.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Ingest">
    Koala loads your **FOCUS** cost and usage exports, either on demand or on a schedule, and tracks every run.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Normalize">
    Line items from all clouds are mapped into one canonical cost model, so a "service" or a "region" means the same thing everywhere.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Analyze">
    The normalized data powers dashboards, the cost explorer, evidence-backed insights, application allocation, and the Ask Koala AI chat.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## FOCUS: one format across clouds

Koala ingests **FOCUS** (FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification) exports — the industry-standard billing format that OCI, AWS, Azure, and GCP can each produce. Because every cloud lands in the same shape, you get true side-by-side, apples-to-apples comparison instead of four incompatible bill formats.

## The evidence principle

This is the idea that everything else rests on:

<Note>
  **Every number comes from SQL over your own data. The AI never invents numbers.** Insights and chat answers are generated by the language model, but the figures inside them are produced by queries — and each carries its evidence: the query, the aggregates, and sample rows.
</Note>

That means an insight or a chat answer is always something you can trust and trace back to the underlying line items — not a plausible-sounding guess.

## Multi-tenant from the ground up

Everything lives inside a **tenant** — one organization's isolated space. Each business unit sees only its own data, while platform admins keep central oversight. See [Tenancy & users](/finops/account/tenancy-and-users).

## Next steps

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Connect your clouds" icon="cloud" href="/finops/connections/connect-clouds">
    Set up OCI, AWS, Azure, and GCP cost exports.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Ingestion" icon="file-import" href="/finops/connections/ingestion">
    Upload files or schedule automatic loads.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>