Connecting your bank for pre-authorized payments

Pre-authorized payment lets your property debit your bank account directly instead of you paying manually each time. This article explains how to connect and manage the bank account used for it.

Who this is for: residents setting up or changing pre-authorized payments, and staff entering bank details on a resident's behalf.

Connecting for the first time

The first time you set up pre-authorized payment, you connect your bank through a secure sign-in flow that verifies your account automatically. Follow the on-screen steps and choose your bank from the list it shows you.

Changing your bank manually

If you need to enter your bank details by hand instead, whether because you're updating an existing enrolment or your bank isn't available through the automatic flow, use the bank picker.

Start typing your bank's name or its institution number, and the list narrows to matching banks, each shown with its logo.

Picking a bank fills in and locks its institution number for you, so you don't need to know it yourself. If you type an institution number that belongs to more than one bank, for example 010, which is shared by both CIBC and Simplii Financial, URBI asks you to choose which one is actually yours instead of guessing.

If your bank isn't in the list, choose Other and enter your bank's name and institution number yourself.

You'll still need your transit number and account number either way, and URBI continues to tell you which is which for a chequing versus a savings account.

The notice you get before a debit

When the amount being debited can vary from one period to the next, your property sends you a notice before the money is taken. That notice is part of the debit itself, not a courtesy: if it cannot be sent, that debit is not collected.

Two things follow from that, and both are worth acting on:

• Keep an email address on your profile, and keep it current. If URBI has no way to reach you, your notice cannot be sent and your debit is skipped for that run. Everybody else at your property is still debited normally.
• If you set up pre-authorized payment through an invite from your property, you are collected the same as everybody else. Residents who enrolled that way were previously sent a notice and then left out of the collection itself, so the money was never actually taken. If that happened to you, the balance is still owed and will be picked up on a following run. Check your balance in the app if you are unsure.

If the connection doesn't go through

If your bank connection fails, URBI tells you whether it's something on your end to fix (like re-entering a detail) or a temporary issue with the connection itself. If it keeps happening, contact your property team.