URBI · Frequently asked questions
URBI, answered
URBI is a building operating system for residential, commercial, and K-12 education buildings and senior living communities. This page holds 60 straight answers to the questions buyers, boards, residents, and administrators ask most: what URBI includes, how HERO and Arthur work, how accounting, pricing, security, and onboarding work, and how URBI compares to the tools buildings use today.
About the company
What is URBI?
URBI is a building operating system that runs the buildings people live, work, and learn in. It unifies operations, communication, payments, governance, and IoT into one platform: the URBI Kore web dashboard for managers, boards, and staff, the URBI App for residents, and HERO AI built into the core. Founded in 2023 and headquartered in Calgary, Canada, URBI serves thousands of units and thousands of property professionals across residential, commercial, and K-12 education buildings and senior living communities.
Who founded URBI and when?
Sepehr Shoarinejad founded URBI in 2023 in Calgary, Alberta. URBI is angel funded. The URBI App has shipped more than 20 version releases since May 2024, and HERO AI launched inside the platform in April 2025.
Where is URBI based?
URBI is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The team works across Calgary and Dallas and is remote first across more than 15 countries. URBI works with buildings in Canada and the United States.
Who uses URBI?
URBI serves four verticals on one platform, each in its own language. Residential: property managers, condo boards, and owners running condos, multifamily buildings, and urban communities. Commercial: office REITs, commercial property managers, and operations directors running office and mixed use properties. K-12 education: schools and districts running campuses where administrators, staff, and parents share one system. Senior living: community operators, Executive Directors, and life enrichment directors running independent living, assisted living, and memory care communities.
The platform
What is a building operating system?
A building operating system is one platform that runs a building's operations, communication, payments, governance, and connected hardware from a single record, instead of five separate tools stitched together with email and spreadsheets. URBI is the first true Building OS and the only one that fully integrates software, HERO AI, and IoT hardware into one system: URBI Kore for the team, the URBI App for residents, and HERO and Arthur working inside both. Read what URBI Kore includes.
What does URBI Kore include?
URBI Kore is the web dashboard where managers, boards, and staff run the building. It includes service tickets with vendor coordination (vendors work from an emailed link with no login), amenity booking with conflict detection and card checkout, events with ticketing and check in, news and announcements, concierge and direct messaging, package logging with an AI label scanner and smart locker integration, visitor and parking passes, registrations, documents and notes, board decisions and voting with quorum tracking and a full audit trail, an OTP secured payment portal, URBI Display for lobby and elevator screens, and HERO AI working alongside the team. Kore runs multi property portfolios with per module permissions, and each role assembles its own dashboard from more than fifteen widget categories.
Does URBI have a resident app?
Yes. The URBI App is free for residents on iOS and Android and is fully integrated with URBI Kore, so a request from a resident's phone lands in the same system the team runs. Residents use it to submit service requests with photos, book amenities, pay with Apple Pay or Google Pay, receive package alerts, create visitor and parking passes, read building news, message the concierge, and vote on board decisions where eligible. Download it from the App Store or Google Play.
Can URBI run more than one building or property from one login?
Yes. A property manager, management company, or asset owner logs in once and sees a portfolio roll up across every building, with a deep dive into each one. Each building keeps its own data, brand color and logo, time zone, and permission map, and a property group can hold one tower or a hundred. See how URBI works for property managers and for owners.
Does URBI replace separate portal, maintenance, accounting and locker tools?
Yes, for most buildings. URBI Kore and the URBI App replace the resident portal, the maintenance ticketing tool, the package logging software, the visitor and parking system, the document hub, and the board voting tool with one system, and URBI Accounting, In Beta, replaces the separate ledger. Smart lockers stay: URBI integrates with them for small parcels while the concierge logs larger items with the AI scanner. See everything URBI Kore includes.
What roles and permissions does URBI support?
URBI has three operator roles on the Kore dashboard (staff, board member, and property manager), with staff sub typed as on site or concierge, and five occupant types in the resident app: owner, resident, tenant, dependent, and property manager. Permissions are set per module at create, read, update, and delete granularity, independent of subscription tier, and a per person override handles exceptions such as a board treasurer who needs reserve fund detail. Vendors never get a login; they work from an emailed link. Details are on the URBI Kore page.
How does URBI handle emergency and urgent notices?
Urgent notices push to every phone immediately, pin to the top of the resident app home screen, and reach residents who have turned off notifications or email for news. Every post goes out in the app, by push, and by email at once, carries one of three urgency levels, and can go to the whole building, the board only, a custom group, or specific units, and an AI urgency scan suggests raising a draft to urgent when it mentions a shut off, an alarm, or an evacuation, with the author making the call. On URBI Display, an emergency takeover flips every lobby and elevator screen in the building to the alert in seconds. Read more on the URBI Kore page.
URBI AI
What is HERO?
HERO is the AI built into URBI Kore for managers, boards, and staff. It answers plain language questions by working across the property's records, documents, and procedures, shows a "what I checked" panel listing the sources it tried, and returns charts, tables, and exports. HERO can prepare service tickets, tasks, vendor work orders, amenity bookings, news posts, and messages, and it groups multi step work into a numbered plan, but every action stays a proposal until a person confirms it. Residents never see HERO; they meet URBI's intelligence through Arthur.
What is Arthur?
Arthur is URBI's AI concierge for the community, included in the Premium tier. Residents reach Arthur by voice call, SMS, email, and in app chat, and every conversation lands on one dashboard for the team. Arthur can take a request through to a service ticket, an amenity booking, a parking registration, a visitor pre schedule, an event RSVP, a form, a receipt, or a payment link, verifying the caller by PIN before anything sensitive and answering only about the caller's own household, while anything that needs a decision, such as a refund, waits for the property manager's approval. When Arthur does not know an answer it escalates to the property manager with a summary, and it resolves up to 80% of inquiries.
Do residents know when they are talking to AI?
Yes. Arthur identifies itself as URBI's AI assistant on every channel, and when someone asks for a person it hands off to one; unknown questions and anything that needs a decision go to the property manager with a summary. AI proposes and people approve, so nothing sensitive happens without a PIN verified resident and, where a decision is needed, a manager's confirmation. Read how HERO and Arthur work on the URBI AI page.
Does our building data train URBI's AI?
No. A building's data stays with that building and never trains outside models. HERO answers from the property's own records, documents, and procedures and shows a "what I checked" panel listing the sources it used, and Arthur answers only about the caller's own household after PIN verification. See the URBI AI page and the Privacy Policy.
Accounting
Is URBI Accounting available?
URBI Accounting is In Beta. It is a full double entry accounting engine with a general ledger, trust accounting, payables with approval chains, receivables with automatic invoicing and autopay, automatic bank reconciliation that arrives pre reconciled at up to 90 percent, budgeting, more than 40 reports, and a two way QuickBooks Online sync, with HERO AI woven through it. AI suggests and people approve; nothing posts to the ledger without a person. Buildings in the Beta program run it on their real books today, and you can sign up for the Beta program on the URBI Accounting page.
What does URBI Accounting do today?
URBI Accounting, In Beta, runs a building's books end to end: every invoice and expense posts its own balanced journal entry, receipts forwarded to the property's dedicated receipts address are read by AI and reviewed by a person, bank feeds sync nightly and arrive pre reconciled at up to 90 percent, and month end closes per bank account with a full audit timeline. An AI CFO narrative lands in the branded board package, and budgets track actuals with overspend alerts. AI suggests and people approve; nothing posts to the ledger without a person. The full engine is on the URBI Accounting page.
Does URBI Accounting replace QuickBooks?
It can. URBI Accounting is a full double entry engine with a general ledger, trust accounting, payables, receivables, budgeting, and more than 40 reports, so a building can run its books in URBI alone. Buildings that keep QuickBooks Online run a two way sync with URBI as the system of record and echo suppression so nothing books twice. Accounting is In Beta; the detail is on the URBI Accounting page.
How does trust and deposit accounting work?
Every ledger line is tagged by fund (operating, trust rent, trust deposit, or reserve), deposits are held as liabilities until they are resolved, and payouts carry a hard guardrail that never sweeps held trust or deposit money into operating cash. Nothing in the ledger is edited or deleted; corrections post forward as new entries, and condo boards get reserve fund reporting. Resident payments land in each building's own payment account, and URBI never holds the money. Trust accounting ships inside URBI Accounting, In Beta; read more on the URBI Accounting page.
How do I join the Accounting Beta?
Sign up for the Beta program from the Beta section of the URBI Accounting page. Accounting lands in the Premium tier, and the buildings already in the Beta run it on their real books today. Finance teams can see how the engine fits their close on the finance teams page.
For residents
Can residents book amenities and pay from their phone?
Yes. Residents book the party room, the gym, or any shared space from the URBI App, with capacity aware scheduling and conflict detection, and pay at checkout with Apple Pay or Google Pay, including any deposit. Cancellation rules and deposit keep or return decisions run with an audit trail, and a building can set which resident types may book each amenity and whether one resident type pays a small fee where another does not. See the amenities feature page and the resident experience page.
How do visitor and parking passes work?
A resident creates a visitor pass in the URBI App, the concierge scans its QR code at the desk, and the resident gets an arrival push the moment the guest checks in. Passes cover guests, contractors, deliveries, and service visits, recurring guests can be pre registered days in advance, and a guest parking pass attaches to the visit with a live monthly allowance and automatic timeout handling. Every check in is logged with the reason for any denial, so the building has an audit trail. More on the resident experience page.
How does package pickup and notification work?
When a package arrives, staff photograph the shipping label and the AI scanner reads the tracking number, carrier, and recipient unit for confirmation, then the resident gets a push notification immediately. Each package moves through received, ready, and picked up, and every package for a unit is visible from that unit's profile. For buildings with smart lockers, small parcels go straight to the locker and residents pick them up directly while the concierge handles larger items. Details on the URBI Kore page.
Can a tenant see the same information as an owner?
No. Owners can see everything in the app, while tenants do not see registered resident details or building documents. News can be targeted with custom groups so an excluded group never sees those posts, and amenity management controls which resident types can book each space. Read more on the resident experience page.
For boards and owners
Is there a full audit trail for board decisions and vendor votes?
Yes. Every board decision moves through an open, closed, or deferred status, every vote is recorded as approve, reject, or abstain, and votes on a vendor RFP are cast per bid so the outcome resolves to approved, rejected, vendor selected, or tied with a permanent record. Quorum tracking is automatic, the board secretary sees who has voted and who has not, and each decision generates a PDF for the board package. The full governance suite is on the URBI Kore page.
Can we distribute AGM packages and track who has read them?
Yes. An AGM package attaches directly to a news post or lives in the building's document hub, the post goes to the whole building, the board only, or a custom group, in the app, by push, and by email at once. Voting on the motions then runs in the app with eligibility verification, automatic quorum tracking, and a full audit trail, replacing paper ballots and emailed PDF chains. See how boards and owners use URBI.
Can an owner transfer be scheduled for a future date?
Yes. You can transfer a unit to a new owner and set the transfer date in advance, and the new owner's invitation is not sent until the day the scheduled transfer takes effect. New owners then automatically receive a welcome to URBI email with a link to sign up. Owner transfers are handled in URBI Kore.
What happens to a previous owner's account after a unit sells?
Previous owners who were already active on URBI stay on record as previous owners of the unit, so the building keeps its history. If the previous owner never accepted their invitation, URBI deletes the pending invite once they are no longer associated with the property, because they never agreed to join. Unit and owner management lives in URBI Kore.
Does URBI work for HOAs as well as condos?
Yes. HOAs run on URBI the same way condo corporations do: amenities, requests, payments, documents, messaging, and governance voting in one platform, with the same resident app. URBI's residential focus covers condos, multifamily buildings, urban communities, and HOAs. See the residential buildings page, or read the URBI vs Condo Control comparison if that is what your community runs today.
For commercial buildings
Does URBI work for commercial office buildings?
Yes. URBI runs office and mixed use properties for commercial property managers, operations directors, and office REITs: work orders, lease documents, CAM, guest passes, tenant communication, conference room booking, and tenant events in one system, with HERO for the building team and Arthur answering tenant employees. Each tenant's employees use the URBI App for their suite. See the commercial buildings page and the URBI vs VTS Activate comparison.
How does URBI handle tenant CAM and lease documents?
Lease abstracts, lease amendments, certificates of insurance, and fit out drawings live at the suite level, building rules and CAM reconciliations live at the property level, and every uploaded PDF is parsed so search works by content, not just title. Base rent and CAM are collected through the app, and URBI Accounting, In Beta, adds CAM reconciliation, estoppel statement, and straight line rent reports. More on the commercial buildings page.
Can asset owners see a portfolio wide view?
Yes. An asset owner logs in once and sees a portfolio roll up across every property with a deep dive into each one, and a property group can hold a single building or an entire fund. Every property carries a live Building Health Score from 0 to 100, benchmarked against the platform average, and URBI Accounting, In Beta, rolls every building into one consolidated view while each keeps its own ledger. See how owners use URBI.
Does URBI support tenant events and lobby marketplace vendors?
Yes. Tenant appreciation events, lunch and learns, wellness sessions, and town halls run with ticketing, an automatic waitlist, Apple and Google Wallet passes, QR check in at the door, and post event surveys. Lobby and nearby vendors, such as a coffee shop or a dry cleaner, sell through the URBI Konnect marketplace inside the app, and the property can take a revenue share that offsets its URBI cost. Details on the URBI Konnect page.
For schools and districts
Does URBI handle tuition payments and payment plans?
Yes. Tuition, facility fees, registration deposits, activity fees, and event tickets are paid through the URBI App with Apple Pay or Google Pay, tuition payment plans are built in, and so are payment reminders. A grandparent or one off volunteer can pay a fee from a single emailed link with no app and no account. URBI uses school language throughout (tuition, not rent, and an enrollment roster, not a rent roll), and the rest is on the schools and districts page.
How does URBI manage permission slips and waivers?
Permission slips and waivers run on versioned templates that target a parent, a facility, or an event, and every signed record stores the signer, the beneficiary, the time, and a PDF. An active signed waiver gates field trip departure, after school program entry, and gym or pool use, with an audit logged staff override for emergencies. Parents sign in the app, and a grandparent or volunteer can sign from a single emailed link with no account. More on the schools and districts page.
Can a school lock down communications to parents in an emergency?
Yes. An urgent post pushes to every parent's phone immediately, pins to the top of the app, and reaches families who have turned off notifications or email for news, so the front office knows the notice went out at full weight instead of hoping. The administrator picks the audience (the whole school, a wing, a classroom, or a group such as fifth grade parents), an AI urgency scan flags a draft that mentions a lockdown, shelter in place, or weather closure for the administrator to confirm, and URBI Display flips every campus screen to the alert. See the schools and districts page and the URBI vs ParentSquare comparison.
Can a district run multiple schools from one account?
Yes. A district superintendent or charter network operator logs in once and sees a portfolio roll up across every school, with a deep dive into each campus. Each school keeps its own data, brand color and logo, time zone, and permission map, and a property group can hold one campus or an entire district. See the schools and districts page, or compare URBI with SchoolPass.
Pricing and contracts
How does URBI pricing work?
URBI has three tiers: Basic, Kore, and Premium. Basic is a self serve entry tier with the resident app, community board, marketplace, and bookings, with limited access to the Kore dashboard; Kore, the recommended tier for most buildings, adds the full Kore dashboard, service tickets, package operations, URBI Display, the governance suite, HERO chat, and full onboarding; Premium adds advanced AI workflows, Arthur, and URBI Accounting (In Beta). Pricing is custom by volume and plans are month to month. Every pricing conversation starts with a demo, so book a demo and we will price your portfolio.
Is URBI month to month or a long contract?
URBI is month to month on every tier: no long term contract, no service agreement, and a building can cancel at any time. Pricing is custom by volume, so book a demo and we will price your portfolio. See the products page for what each tier includes.
Is there a setup or implementation fee?
No. URBI has no setup fee and no implementation fee on any tier. Onboarding, including the staff and concierge walkthrough and the resident launch, is part of the Kore and Premium tiers, and Basic is self serve. Pricing itself is custom by volume and is discussed at your demo.
Can we change plans later?
Yes. A building can move between Basic, Kore, and Premium at any time as its needs change, for example starting on Kore and adding Premium when it wants Arthur to take resident calls or wants URBI Accounting, In Beta. Team permissions are independent of tier, so nothing about who can do what has to be rebuilt. Book a demo to talk through the right starting tier.
Data and security
Where is URBI data hosted and how is it secured?
URBI data is processed and stored on servers in the United States through URBI's service providers: Supabase, hosted on Amazon Web Services, for the database and application hosting, Stripe for payment processing, and Twilio for SMS and push notification delivery. Data is encrypted in transit with TLS and sensitive data is encrypted at rest, every provider is contractually bound to protect personal information to the standard of Canadian privacy law, and URBI handles personal information under PIPEDA and Alberta's PIPA. Anyone can request access to or deletion of their personal information at hello@myurbi.co, and requests are processed within 30 days. The full Privacy Policy is published on this site.
Is URBI SOC 2 compliant?
Not yet. URBI's SOC 2 Type II report is in progress and not published, so URBI does not claim the certification. What is in place today: data is encrypted in transit, every action writes a permanent audit trail, URBI shares no data with third parties, and the infrastructure providers URBI runs on are independently audited. The full detail is on the security and privacy page.
Does URBI sell or share resident data?
No. URBI never sells resident data and never shares it. Every service provider that processes data on URBI's behalf is contractually bound to protect personal information to the standard of Canadian privacy law, and anyone can request access to or deletion of their personal information at hello@myurbi.co. Read the Privacy Policy.
Getting started and onboarding
How long does it take to go live on URBI?
URBI is live in weeks, on a fixed playbook. Resident information imports automatically when the building has it ready, staff and board credentials are provisioned immediately so the team can explore before launch, residents receive a letter one week before launch, and on launch day sign up instructions go out automatically with the concierge and management already inside the system. Read how Key Condo and The Royal run on URBI.
Do vendors need an account to receive work orders?
No. Vendors receive a work order by email as a tokenized link, and from that link they schedule the visit, tick off subtasks, upload completion photos, and answer RFPs, with no login and no licence fee for the trade. URBI keeps a vendor file per building with categories, contacts, and documents, and vendor work is tracked through the same service tickets the team already uses. Vendor coordination lives in URBI Kore.
Can we import our existing resident and unit roster?
Yes. Units and residents import in bulk from a CSV, and when the building has its resident information ready the import is automatic during onboarding. Residents then receive token based invitations with OTP verification and consent capture, so nobody is added to the platform without agreeing to join. Ask about your current export at your demo.
Is training required for staff and board members?
No. There is no mandatory training program to schedule or pay for; most operators run their first shift on URBI the day it arrives, and the Help Center documentation covers the rest. Staff and concierge onboarding is included on the Kore and Premium tiers before launch day, and board members vote and review decisions from the same app residents use, with nothing to learn beyond their invitation. See the building operators page.
What happens during a URBI demo?
A URBI demo is a live walkthrough of URBI Kore, the resident app, HERO, and Arthur on your building's terms with the URBI team, and it is where pricing for your portfolio is discussed. Bring your current workflows, such as a service request, a board vote, or an AGM package, and watch them run in URBI. Book a demo, or email hello@myurbi.co with questions first.
Integrations
Does URBI integrate with QuickBooks Online?
Yes. URBI Accounting runs a two way sync with QuickBooks Online, with URBI as the system of record and echo suppression so nothing books twice. The sync ships as part of URBI Accounting, which is In Beta, so a building that keeps QuickBooks Online for its accountant does not enter anything twice. Details on the URBI Accounting page.
Does URBI work with smart lockers?
Yes. URBI integrates with smart locker systems for small parcels, so residents pick those up directly from the locker, while the concierge logs larger items with the AI scanner and the resident is notified either way. Package operations are part of the Kore and Premium tiers. More on the URBI Kore page.
How does URBI handle fobs and building access?
Fobs are registered per unit in URBI with an active flag and a last audit date, so an audit surfaces stale fobs, and key slots are tracked as checked out or on hand. When a unit turns over, every fob, key, bike, storage locker, vehicle, and pet tied to it shows in one place. When a vendor needs access to a unit, a token based access request goes to the resident, who accepts, declines, or proposes another time, and the ticket waits for the answer. Details on the URBI Kore page.
Support and comparisons
Where do I find help articles and guides?
The URBI Help Center at myurbi.co/help has guides for setting up your building, everyday operations, billing and reporting, and the resident app, searchable or browsable by collection. If an article does not answer your question, email hello@myurbi.co.
How do I reach a real person?
Email hello@myurbi.co and a member of the URBI team replies. Residents of a building on URBI message their concierge or property manager directly in the app, and when Arthur cannot answer a question it escalates to the property manager with a summary. Prospects can book a demo, and the contact page lists every way to reach URBI.
How is URBI different from Yardi?
URBI is one AI native system for the whole building: the Kore dashboard, the resident app, governance, and accounting in one tier, with HERO working for managers and Arthur answering residents. Yardi sells an enterprise suite of separately priced modules that typically takes months of implementation and formal training to run. URBI is live in weeks on month to month terms and does not need a training program. Read the full URBI vs Yardi comparison.
How is URBI different from Condo Control?
Both run condo communities, but URBI built AI into the core while Condo Control added a chat assistant as a paid add on. In URBI, HERO executes multi step work with a person's approval, Arthur answers residents by phone, text, email, and in app chat, and accounting pre reconciles the books at up to 90 percent, all included in the platform tier. URBI also runs commercial and K-12 education buildings and senior living communities alongside residential on the same platform. Read the full URBI vs Condo Control comparison.
How is URBI different from BuildingLink?
URBI runs a building on AI that acts, while BuildingLink runs on rule based automation from a platform built module by module since 1999. In URBI, HERO executes multi step plans with a person's approval, Arthur answers residents by voice, text, email, and chat, vendors work from an emailed link instead of paper, and accounting, In Beta, pre reconciles the books at up to 90 percent; BuildingLink has no native accounting and no published AI. Read the full URBI vs BuildingLink comparison.
How is URBI different from AppFolio?
AppFolio is a rental leasing and rent roll platform with community associations as one vertical among several, while URBI is purpose built for buildings. AppFolio's AI is real but pointed at leasing prospect calls and rental payables, and its community product sends board elections and AGM votes to a third party tool; URBI runs governance natively with in app voting, eligibility verification, and quorum tracking, with HERO for managers and Arthur answering residents and boards. Read the full URBI vs AppFolio comparison.
Where can I compare URBI against the tool we use now?
The comparison hub at myurbi.co/compare holds sixteen spec driven comparisons, from Yardi, Condo Control, BuildingLink, and AppFolio for residential buildings to VTS Activate, HqO, and Building Engines for commercial properties and ParentSquare, SchoolPass, and Incident IQ for schools. Each page covers platform shape, AI, accounting, governance, onboarding, and pricing model, and says plainly when the other tool is the better fit. If your tool is not listed, book a demo and bring your workflows.
How do I contact URBI or book a demo?
Email hello@myurbi.co or book a demo at myurbi.co/demo. A demo is a walkthrough of URBI Kore, the resident app, HERO, and Arthur on your building's terms, and it is where pricing is discussed. URBI works with residential, commercial, and K-12 education buildings and senior living communities in Canada and the United States.
Still have a question?
Book a demo and ask it live. We will walk through URBI Kore, the resident app, HERO, and Arthur on your building's terms, or write to hello@myurbi.co.