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Open Sidekick → Spend → Departments & budgets to compare Sidekick spend with the limits that govern it. Budget controls appear only when enforcement is enabled for the workspace.

Default budgets

A default is the monthly budget a new person or agent starts with when no individual budget applies. There are two defaults:
  • Default person budget.
  • Default agent budget.
You can clear a default. Setting it to 0 prevents spending unless an individual budget or a department budget provides an amount.

Organization and department pools

Your organization can have one shared monthly budget. You can also give a department its own budget; that amount is reserved from the organization budget. A department without its own budget uses the organization budget. Choose how a pool is allocated:
  • Pooled keeps one shared amount for everyone covered by the budget.
  • Equal divides the available amount evenly among the people it covers.
  • Unequal lets you set amounts for specific people while the remainder stays shared.
Changing a budget affects later spend checks. It does not rewrite spend already recorded.

Approve or reject budget requests

When a budget blocks further spend, the person or agent can request more. Requests land in the Sidekick approvals queue with the requested amount and reason.
1

Open the request

Review who’s asking, how much, and what the spend is going toward.
2

Approve or reject

Approving raises the budget by the requested amount. Rejecting leaves the existing cap in place and notifies the requester.

Understand the amount shown

The spend shown in Departments & budgets is the amount Sidekick uses when applying your budgets. Runs and token counts provide additional usage context, but they are separate measurements. If spend data is unavailable, Sidekick shows it as unavailable instead of showing zero.

Where to go next

Approvals

Where budget requests appear alongside tool and admin approvals.