Expense System, Troubleshooting
This article covers error states that are visible to staff, property managers, and board members in the Expense System. Bank link failed / vendor cannot complete bank linking Symptom: The vendor...
Last updated
This article covers error states that are visible to staff, property managers, and board members in the Expense System.
Bank link failed / vendor cannot complete bank linking
Symptom: The vendor reports that the bank-linking invitation link did not work, expired, or shows an error during the Plaid or Stripe onboarding flow.
What to check:
- Invitations expire after 21 days. If the invitation has expired, go to the vendor record, click Link Bank Account again, and send a fresh invitation.
- The invitation is sent to the email address on the vendor record. Confirm the vendor's email address is correct before resending.
- If the vendor's bank is not supported by Plaid, the vendor will need to be paid manually. Open the expense and use Mark Paid with a cheque or wire transfer instead.
ACH payment returned / NSF (insufficient funds)
Symptom: An expense that was set to Auto Pay shows Auto Pay Failed in the expense list or in the Activity tab.
What happened: The payment was sent but the bank returned it, typically because the payee did not have enough funds in their account.
What to do:
- Open the expense and click the Activity tab to see the specific return reason.
- If the return is an NSF (insufficient funds), the system automatically retried once. If that retry also failed, the expense is back in Approved status.
- Contact the payee to resolve their bank account balance.
- Once resolved, you can either:
- Re-enable Auto Pay on the expense (click Edit Details and update the Auto Pay setting), or
- Click Mark Paid to record a manual payment by a different method.
ACH payment returned, account relink required
Symptom: The Auto Pay status shows Relink Requested in the Activity tab and the expense is stuck in Approved status.
What happened: The payment was returned because the bank account number has changed, the account is closed, or the bank cannot locate the account.
What to do:
- The system has already sent the vendor a new bank-linking invitation automatically.
- Follow up with the vendor to complete re-linking. The invitation expires in 21 days.
- Once the vendor re-links, Auto Pay resumes for the next payment, or you can manually trigger payment from the expense.
Payee bank account frozen
Symptom: The vendor's bank account shows a Frozen status, and Auto Pay cannot be initiated for any expenses assigned to that vendor.
What happened: The bank reported an unauthorized return on a prior payment. This is a security measure to prevent further attempted payments to a compromised or disputed account.
What to do:
- Do not attempt to re-initiate Auto Pay until the issue with the vendor's bank account is resolved.
- Contact your property administrator. An administrator must manually clear the frozen status on the vendor record after confirming the account is valid and the vendor has consented to payment.
- Until the account is unfrozen, pay the vendor manually using Mark Paid with a cheque or wire transfer.
Approval is blocked, expense stuck in Pending Approval
Symptom: An expense has been in Pending Approval status for an unexpectedly long time, or the expected approver reports they cannot see the expense in their queue.
Possible causes and fixes:
| Cause | Fix |
|---|---|
| The approver's permission has changed since the expense was submitted | An administrator should review the approval chain in Settings → Expense Approval and update it. The submitter may need to withdraw and resubmit the expense. |
| The expense is waiting on an earlier approver in the sequential chain | Open the expense and check the approval chain progress in the right sidebar. Only the current active approver can act; later approvers must wait. |
| The approver has not received a notification | Ask the approver to check Accounting → Expenses → Pending Approval directly. Notification delivery is not guaranteed for all email providers. |
Some bills in a batch approval did not approve
Symptom: You approved several bills at once and the result names one or more bills, by vendor, as not approved.
What happened: Each bill in a batch is approved on its own. One of them was refused or could not be completed, and the rest went through normally.
What to do:
- Open each bill named in the result.
- Check the usual reasons a single approval is refused: it is not your turn in the approval chain, the bill was edited or withdrawn while the batch was running, or somebody else already acted on it.
- Approve it on its own once the reason is dealt with.
Bills that are not named in the result are approved. There is no need to re-run the batch, and re-approving a bill that already went through is refused rather than doubled.
Submitting or resubmitting a bill for approval failed
Symptom: You chose Submit for Approval and URBI reported that the submission did not go through.
What happened: The submission genuinely failed. The bill stayed in Draft and no approver was notified.
What to do:
- Read the reason shown, fix it, and submit again.
- Confirm the bill has left Draft and reads Pending Approval before you consider it sent.
- If a submission is still being worked on rather than finished, URBI says that instead of reporting success. Wait for it to settle and check the bill's status rather than submitting a second time.
A bill sitting in Draft is not waiting on anybody. If a submitter believes a bill is with an approver and no approver has been notified, this is the first thing to check.
A receipt did not attach to a bill
Symptom: You attached a receipt or supporting document to a bill and URBI told you the file was not stored.
What happened: The file did not reach the bill. Previously the screen would have said the document was attached either way, so the bill would have gone through approval with nothing behind it.
What to do:
- Try the attachment again. Most failures are transient.
- Check the file itself: an unsupported file type or an unusually large file is the common cause.
- Open the bill's Receipts tab and confirm the document is listed before submitting the bill for approval. An approver reviewing a bill with no receipt behind it has nothing to check the amount against.
QuickBooks Online (QBO) shows "Not Connected"
Symptom: The QBO section in Accounting → Settings shows "Not Connected" or a connection error.
What this affects: Expense data is not being synced to QuickBooks. All expense records are still fully stored and functional within URBI, this only affects the QBO export.
What to do:
- Go to Accounting → Settings → QuickBooks Online.
- Click Connect to QuickBooks and complete the OAuth authorization flow.
- If the connection fails, check that the QuickBooks account you are using has permission to manage bills and expenses in the company file linked to this property.
- If the error persists after reconnecting, contact URBI support with the property name and the error message shown on the settings page.
Note: QuickBooks sync is a one-way export from URBI to QBO. Changes made directly in QBO are not reflected back in URBI.
Auto Pay shows "Dispatch Failed" in the Activity tab
Symptom: An expense that had Auto Pay enabled shows Auto Pay Dispatch Failed in the Activity tab immediately after approval, meaning the payment was never queued, not just rejected.
What happened: A temporary system error prevented the Auto Pay job from being sent to the payment processor. The expense is in Approved status with Auto Pay not active.
What to do:
- Wait 10 to 15 minutes and refresh the page. The system may have recovered automatically.
- If the status is still Approved with no queued payment, click Edit Details and re-save the Auto Pay setting to re-queue the payment.
- If the issue continues, manually mark the expense paid using Mark Paid while URBI support investigates.