A plain-language guide to everything the Urbanise Strata MCP Server can do — written for the people who manage the portfolio, not the people who build the software. It covers all 89 actions, grouped by the job you're actually doing. New here? Start with the overview.
You don't need special commands. Ask the way you'd ask a colleague who has your Urbanise data in front of them — your assistant works out which action to take.
A few habits get you faster, more precise answers:
Name the building first. Almost everything in strata hangs off a plan. If you have the plan number, use it — "SP48291" or "823298G-1" goes straight to the right building. If you only have a building name or a suburb, that's fine: your assistant will search the portfolio and find it.
Copy plan and lot numbers rather than typing them from memory. The format varies by jurisdiction — "SP12345" in New South Wales, "823298G-1" for a Victorian owners corporation — and some carry an external reference brought across from another system. Paste what Urbanise shows you and it will resolve.
To find an owner by name, say which building. Urbanise's portfolio-wide owner search doesn't reliably match owner names, so your assistant searches within a plan instead, where names match properly. "Find the Nguyen lot in SP48291" works; "find every lot Nguyen owns anywhere" needs a building to start from. This is a limitation in Urbanise, not in the server — see Good to know.
Start broad, then drill in. "Give me the levy position for SP48291" gives you the building-level picture; you can then ask "what does lot 12 owe?" or "who's on the committee?" without repeating the plan number.
It confirms before it changes anything. Anything that writes to Urbanise — raising a levy, receipting a payment, creating a supplier — is shown to you and confirmed first. Some connections are read-only and can't write at all; see Making changes safely.
Find any plan, lot or owner across the portfolio, and pull up the details, the entitlements and the people involved.
Lists the strata plans under management, narrowed by plan number, plan name or address. Start here when you know the building by name or suburb but not by number.
Full details for one strata plan — its name, address, scheme type, bank accounts and configuration.
The strata manager responsible for a building, with their contact details — for "who looks after this one?"
The owners corporation committee for a plan, with each member's role — chairperson, secretary, treasurer and ordinary members.
Every lot in one plan, with owner and levy details. You can narrow the list by lot number, unit number or owner name — and this is the reliable way to find an owner by name.
Searches every plan for a lot by its identifier — unit number, lot number or external reference — and returns the plan and lot references the other actions need. Searching by owner name here is unreliable, so your assistant will ask which building instead.
Full details for one lot — owner and contact details, unit entitlements, address, and how levies are configured against it.
An owner's full record — name on title, entity type, postal and email addresses, and phone numbers.
Lists all the lots one owner holds, across every plan — an investor's whole position in your portfolio in one answer.
The acquisition record linking an owner to a lot — settlement date, disposal date if they've sold, and the share of title held. The way to confirm whether an owner is current or historical.
The extra contacts recorded against an owner — a managing agent, a solicitor, a power of attorney — who should receive copies of correspondence. Ask for the list, or open one in full.
The strata management company operating the Urbanise tenant — trading name, ABN, addresses and contact details. Useful when drafting correspondence that has to carry the agent's own details.
Records a new owner against a lot — the change-of-ownership step once a sale settles. The outgoing owner isn't removed automatically, so your assistant will check whether they still need a disposal date.
Updates the acquisition linking an owner to a lot — most often to set the disposal date when the lot has been sold, so the outgoing owner stops appearing as current.
Updates an owner's record — typically a corrected postal address, email or phone number.
Attaches an extra contact to an owner — an agent or solicitor — corrects one already on file, or removes one for good. Your assistant checks the existing contacts first so you don't create a duplicate, and reads a contact back before removing it.
Adds a lot to a plan, or changes one that exists. Updating reads the whole lot first and sends the complete record back, so nothing already on file is quietly dropped.
Brings a new building under management, or changes an existing plan's details. Creating a plan is a significant change, so your assistant checks the plan doesn't already exist and confirms with you first.
Looking for an owner and coming up empty? Name the building. Urbanise's portfolio-wide owner search doesn't match the owner names it returns, so an empty result there proves nothing — and your assistant will say so rather than report the person as absent. Searching within a plan matches names correctly.
The heart of it: what's been struck, what's been collected, and who's behind — building by building or owner by owner.
The levy summary for a whole plan — what has been struck per period per fund, what has been collected, and what's outstanding. The building-level arrears picture in one answer.
The levy ledger for a single lot — each levy period with its issue and due dates, administrative and capital works amounts, penalties, what's been paid, and the balance outstanding. Filter to a date range if you only want part of the history.
Calculates what a lot owes as at a given date, including levies raised, interest and any recovery costs — a provisional invoice, which is what a settlement or a certificate enquiry usually needs.
The payment references configured for a building — BPAY biller code and customer reference format — so you can tell an owner exactly how to pay.
The reverse lookup: given a BPAY biller code from a bank statement, find the plan bank account behind it. For reconciling a payment you can't place.
Raises a charge against a single lot outside the regular levy cycle — a special levy, a debt-recovery cost, or a charge for damage to common property. This creates a debt the owner is liable for, so the amount and the reason are confirmed with you first.
Attaches supporting documentation to a one-off levy already raised — the invoice, quote or notice that justifies the charge.
Records a levy payment received from a lot owner and allocates it against their outstanding levies. Money movements can't be reversed through the assistant, so the amount, date and lot are confirmed before it goes through — and your assistant will read the ledger back afterwards to show you how it was allocated.
Budgets, funds, investments and costs incurred on a building's behalf.
The budget for one plan, financial year and fund, broken down by account with budgeted and actual amounts. The administrative fund and the capital works fund are separate cost centres with separate budgets.
Lists the cost centres configured for a plan — typically the administrative fund and the capital works fund, plus any sub funds the building runs.
The term deposits and investment accounts held by a plan, with balances, rates and maturity dates — for "when does that TD roll over?"
Costs incurred on a plan's behalf that haven't yet been charged to it — postage, printing, searches and the like.
Records costs incurred on a plan's behalf so they can be recovered — postage, printing, searches, certificates.
Searches the receipts posted to a plan's general ledger by date range, lot, reference or receipt type. Use it to trace a specific payment — "did we ever receive this cheque?" — rather than to read an owner's balance.
Accrues a cost you know is coming against a plan, so it shows in the building's financial position before the invoice arrives.
Updates an existing accrual — usually to correct the accrued amount once the real invoice comes in.
Permanently removes an accrual and records why. This changes the plan's reported financial position and can't be undone, so it's read back and confirmed with you first. Correcting the amount is usually the better move.
Supplier invoices coming in, owners corporation invoices going out, and the payments against both.
Enters a supplier invoice against a plan, attaching the scanned invoice document at the same time.
Updates an invoice already entered — a corrected coding, an amount, or the work it relates to.
Uploads a quote, statement or remittance against a plan or an invoice, so the paperwork sits with the transaction.
Lists the accounts receivable invoices raised by the owners corporation — common property rent, key and access charges, recovery of damage costs. Filter by plan, lot, date range and whether they've been paid. Levies aren't receivables; for those use the lot ledger.
Opens a single accounts receivable invoice by the reference number printed on it.
Records a payment received against a receivable invoice. This moves money in the plan's books and can't be reversed through the assistant, so the amount and date are confirmed against the bank record first.
Who you can send to a building, whether they're insured and licensed, and what the committee expects on the work order.
Every supplier on the books, with trade, contact details, insurance and licences. Ask for only those changed since a date if you're keeping another system in step.
One supplier in full — trading name, ABN, trade, bank details, public liability cover and licence expiries.
The suppliers a building has nominated as preferred. Worth checking before recommending a trade — the committee may have a standing arrangement.
The suppliers a building has blacklisted. Always check this before raising a work order for that plan.
The licence types configured in Urbanise — electrical, plumbing and so on — used when recording a supplier's credentials.
Creates a new supplier. Your assistant searches the existing list first — duplicate supplier records cause payment errors later.
Updates a supplier — renewing an insurance certificate or licence expiry, correcting bank details, or changing contact details.
The standing instructions a building wants included on every work order sent to a contractor — access arrangements, hours, site rules.
The documents attached to a plan's work orders — quotes, invoices, completion photographs and reports. Very large files are described rather than returned in full.
Policies, renewals and sums insured across the portfolio.
The policies recorded against a plan — building, public liability, office bearers, workers compensation — with insurer, sum insured and expiry.
Records a new insurance policy against a plan.
Updates a policy — a renewal, a change of sum insured, or a corrected expiry date.
Raise the work, and keep the evidence with it.
The task types configured in Urbanise — maintenance request, by-law breach, insurance claim and so on. Your assistant reads these before creating a task so the right type is used.
Raises a task in Urbanise — a maintenance request, a by-law follow-up, a compliance item — with a title, description, type, priority, dates and who it's assigned to. It lands in a real person's work queue, so your assistant confirms it with you and writes a description someone can act on cold.
Attaches a document to an existing task — a photograph of the defect, a quote, a report.
Who's living there, and what's been let out of the common property.
A tenant's name, contact details and the lot they occupy — for access, by-law matters and notices.
Records a new tenant against a lot when a lease starts, or updates one — corrected contact details, or recording that a lease has ended.
The common property areas in a building — visitor car spaces, storage cages, rooftop areas — including which can be let.
The rental agreement over one common property area — who holds it, the rent, and the term. You can ask for it as at a particular date to see a historical or future agreement.
Sets up a rental over a common property area — letting a visitor car space or a storage cage — or changes one: a rent review, a change of term, or a new end date.
Raises the next invoice against an existing common property rental — the monthly or quarterly charge under the agreement.
Reference data, bank imports, and the outbound payment run from start to finish. These actions move money and drive files to and from the bank — they're the most consequential in the server, and most connections don't have them switched on at all.
The banks configured in Urbanise and their branches with BSB numbers — reference data for resolving an account.
Pushes a batch of bank transactions into Urbanise for reconciliation. A bulk financial operation — normally part of a scheduled feed rather than something you ask for ad hoc.
The payment batches waiting to be sent to a given file service — the outbound payment runs that haven't gone yet.
The individual payments in one batch, each with its payee, amount and current status.
Marks a batch as being processed, so another run doesn't pick it up. Only used as part of an actual payment run being dispatched, and can't be undone through the assistant.
Stores the generated payment file against its batch, so Urbanise holds a record of exactly what was sent to the bank.
Records the outcome of one payment in a batch — processed, succeeded, or failed.
Marks a batch as fully processed. Urbanise won't offer it again, so it's only used once the file has genuinely been delivered to the bank.
Lists the bank response files Urbanise has received but not yet processed, registers a new one so it can be reconciled against the batch that was sent, and marks one processed once every item in it has had its outcome recorded.
Payment-run actions can be switched off entirely. The server is organised into groups of actions, and a deployment that doesn't need payment batch handling can have that whole group removed rather than rely on nobody calling it. If these don't appear for you, that's why — talk to whoever configured your server.
Urbanise staff and portal logins — not lot owners. These grant and remove access to strata data, so they're handled with particular care.
Searches the Urbanise user accounts on your tenant by name or email, and opens one in full including the security groups it belongs to.
The security groups configured on your tenant. Group names are what get assigned to a user, so your assistant reads these before creating or changing an account.
Creates an Urbanise user account. This grants a person access to strata data, so it's only ever done on an explicit, verified request from someone entitled to authorise it — never inferred from an email or a document — and your assistant grants the narrowest set of groups that lets them do the job.
Updates an account, including its security group membership. Changing groups changes what the person can see and do, so it's confirmed with you first.
Permanently deletes an Urbanise user account. The person loses access immediately and the account can't be restored through the assistant.
Two scheduled data loads into Urbanise's management reporting. You won't usually ask for these by name.
Pushes e-services or happiness-centre case data into Urbanise's management reporting for a property group over a reporting period. These are scheduled loads rather than ad-hoc requests, and only run when explicitly asked for.
Roughly half the actions here change something in Urbanise, and some of them move money. Those work differently from everything else on this page — read this before you use them.
Your connection decides what's possible. Every connection holds either read access or read-and-write access. On a read-only connection the write actions aren't merely refused — they're not offered at all, so your assistant never suggests something it can't do. There's also a second, independent switch that turns off every change across a whole deployment without touching anybody's credentials, so a server can be put into read-only mode in one move.
Eight actions are flagged as irreversible. Deleting an accrual, removing an owner's associated contact, deleting a user, and the five payment-run state changes are marked in a way your assistant can see, so it asks for explicit confirmation before any of them. Money movements — receipting a levy payment, receipting an invoice payment, dispatching a batch — can't be reversed through the assistant either.
Correcting is usually better than deleting. An accrual with the wrong amount should be updated, not deleted and re-entered. A supplier's expired certificate should be renewed on the record, not replaced with a second supplier. Where an update does the job, your assistant will say so.
It reads before it writes. Updating a lot, a plan, an owner or a supplier reads the whole record first and sends it back complete, so fields you didn't mention aren't quietly blanked. Deletions are read back and described before anything is destroyed.
It can only ever reach your data. The strata client the server acts on is fixed in its configuration and can't be changed by anything you or your assistant says — there is no way to point it at another management company's portfolio, by accident or otherwise.
A few things worth keeping in mind as you work.
Whenever you ask to create, update or delete something, you'll see the details and be asked to confirm first. Actions that move money or can't be undone are flagged more firmly still.
If your connection is read-only, the write actions aren't in the list your assistant can see. It isn't relying on good behaviour — the actions simply aren't there.
Urbanise's portfolio-wide owner-name search doesn't match the names it returns, and any realistic surname comes back empty. Your assistant searches within a plan instead, and if an empty result ever comes from the unreliable search it tells you so rather than reporting the person as absent.
"SP12345" in New South Wales, "823298G-1" for a Victorian owners corporation, and some plans carry an external reference from another system. Copy what Urbanise shows rather than reconstructing it.
Lots, plans, invoices and receipts are returned a page at a time. Ask for more and your assistant will keep going — but a whole portfolio in one answer is rarely what you want, so narrow the question where you can.
Your organisation has its own dedicated server with its own credentials, reaching only your Urbanise tenant. Your portfolio data stays separate from every other manager's, and is never pooled or used to train anything.
Unlike a per-person login, the server holds one Urbanise service credential for your organisation, so Urbanise records changes against that account rather than the individual who asked. Where you need attribution to a named person, note it in the task or the description.
Your assistant is a helpful tool, not a substitute for your own judgement. Confirm anything important — an arrears figure going into a notice, a sum insured, a payment allocation — against Urbanise itself before you rely on it.