BSI Online and Durham Region: How the Reporting Portal Works From the Owner's Side

If you own or manage a commercial or multi-residential building in Durham, the name BSI Online is on your notice and on your tester’s report, and you may never have interacted with it directly. That is normal. Here is what BSI is, what it does for the Region, and what, if anything, you need to do with it.

What BSI Online is

Backflow Solutions Inc. is a company that runs cross-connection control programs for municipalities. Durham Region contracts it to administer the backflow prevention program under By-law 24-2018. According to the Region’s own program page, BSI Online manages:

• Contractor (tester) registration and verification of their qualifications.
• Cross-connection survey report submission and review.
• Test report submission and tracking.
• Device maintenance scheduling, which is what generates the notices.

The Region remains the authority. BSI keeps the records and moves the paper. When you see “BSI Online,” “Backflow Solutions,” or “on behalf of the Regional Municipality of Durham” on a letter, it is one program.

What BSI does that touches you

Notices. BSI’s records hold every device the Region knows about at your address, with an anniversary date. Ahead of that date, BSI sends the owner of record a notice to have the device tested (or, less often, repaired or installed). Our notice page walks through the letter.

Receiving the report. After the test, the authorized tester submits the report through the BSI portal. Section 6.5 of the by-law (as amended May 2026) requires that within 28 days of the test. BSI reviews it for completeness, the Region reviews it, and the record for your device updates. The tag on the device is issued on the strength of that.

The fee. BSI charges $25 per test report at submission, subject to annual increases (the Region’s page says exactly that). There is no fee for tester registration and no fee for survey report submission. The tester pays the $25 when filing; whether your quote includes it is a question to ask. Ours does.

Tester registry. BSI maintains the list of authorized testers registered with the Region, and the Region’s page links to it. Anyone can check that a tester is on it.

What you do not need to do

You do not need an account. You do not need to log in and upload anything. You do not need to pay BSI directly. The by-law puts the filing duty on the tester (section 6.5). If a tester hands you a report and says “you submit it,” that is not how the Durham program is set up, and it is a reason to use a different tester.

What you can do

Confirm what is on file. If you are not sure whether last year’s report reached the Region, or which devices the Region has for your address, contact BSI or the Region with the address and the reference number from your notice. We do this routinely for clients and prospective clients before anyone pays for a test that may already be on record.

Correct the record. Wrong owner contact, a device that was replaced, a serial number transcribed wrong: the tester can correct device details on the report, and the owner can update the contact with the Region or BSI so notices arrive at the right desk.

Keep your own file. Section 6.6 requires the owner to keep test reports on site for five years. That is your record; BSI’s is the Region’s. They should match.

From test to record: the sequence

1. Tester tests and tags the device on site.
2. Tester completes the Region’s standard test report (section 1.1(l) of the by-law) with device details, readings and result.
3. Tester submits it through BSI Online with the $25 fee, within 28 days.
4. BSI and the Region review. The record updates. The device’s next anniversary is set.
5. You get a copy of the report and, from us, a filing confirmation.
6. Ahead of the next anniversary, BSI sends the next notice. If we tested the device, our reminder gets there first.

When the report never arrives

The failure mode we see most: a test was done, a tag was hung, and the report never went in. The owner believes the building is compliant; the Region’s record says untested; the notices keep coming and eventually escalate. Nobody did anything wrong on purpose. The tester was busy, the paperwork sat, the 28 days passed. The fix is to ask for the filing confirmation every year and treat the tag as evidence rather than proof. Our post on test tags covers the distinction.

Where the survey fits

BSI also receives cross-connection survey reports, which are a separate document from the test report and a separate function under the by-law (done every five years and on ownership, tenant or process changes, by plumbers, engineers or technologists). If your notice asks for a survey rather than a test, that goes to one of them; we handle the test.

Bottom line

BSI Online is the Region’s administrator. It sends the notice, takes the report, charges $25, and keeps the record. Your job is to have the device tested by an authorized tester who files promptly, and to keep a copy. Ours is to do that and to confirm when it is on record. The service page has the rest.