# Check how budgets are being used

> Rewards Hub → Budget utilisation shows, for one country, how much budget holders were given and how much they awarded across the budget cycles you pick, holder by holder.

- Product: Rewards Hub › Budgets
- Who can do this: Super admins, HR admins
- Plan: Rewards Hub
- Where: Admin dashboard
- Last checked: 15 Oct 2026
- Web page: https://www.vantagecircle.com/en/help/rewards-hub/budgets/check-how-budgets-are-being-used/

Go to **Rewards Hub → Budget utilisation**. It shows how much budget holders were given and how much they awarded to employees, for one country at a time.

## Choose what to look at

1. **Country:** pick one. There's no "all countries" view, because points are worth a different amount in each country.
2. **Department:** narrow to one or more departments, or leave it on **All departments**.
3. **Budget cycles:** leave it on **All cycles**, or pick the cycles you want to compare.

![Budget utilisation: 30.7L allocated to holders, 23.7L awarded to employees and 24 of 24 holders who awarded points, above a chart of allocations and awards for each quarter of 2026](https://cdn.vantagecircle.com/image/upload/q_auto,f_auto/v1792133425/vantagecircle/help-centre/en/rewards-hub/budgets/budget-utilisation-014318f8b6d77d60.png)

## Read the totals

- **Allocated to holders:** new budget given in those cycles. Budget carried in from an earlier cycle isn't counted again.
- **Awarded to employees:** points holders gave out, including from carried-in budget. That's why awards can be higher than allocations.
- **Holders who awarded points:** how many holders gave out any points, out of all holders.

**Budget activity by cycle** puts each cycle's allocations next to its awards. The cycle that's still running is marked **In progress**.

## Find holders who aren't using their budget

Under **Budget by holder**, set **Sort** to **Least used first**. The other choices are **Most points awarded** (the default), **Largest allocation** and **Name A–Z**.

**Used** compares what a holder awarded with everything they could have awarded, including carried-in budget. Anything under 50% is highlighted. A **Taken back** tag means more points were taken back from that holder than given in those cycles.

Select a holder's name to see each cycle on its own: **Carried in**, **Allocated**, **Awarded**, and **Left with holder now**.

Select **Download** to save the holder list as a CSV file.

## Good to know

- Birthday, anniversary and bulk-upload points aren't part of holder budgets, so they aren't counted here.
- These figures show activity, not a closing balance. For each holder's balance today, use **Rewards Hub → Budgets**. See [How budgets work](/en/help/rewards-hub/budgets/how-budgets-work/).
- HR admins see only the departments they're responsible for. If none are assigned, the page says "You don't have access to budget data". Ask a super admin to give you access to departments.
- If your company doesn't use budgets, this page isn't shown.

For downloadable reports, see [Emails and reports](/en/help/rewards-hub/emails-and-reports/).