When an issuer (bank, financial institution) creates a debit card for a customer, that card is tied directly to an account with an issuer.
If a resident is adding a debit card in the debit card section and is getting a "Debit Card not Valid" message, this can be due to invalid information being entered or the user has tried to use a card that is not an actual debit card.
If the resident confirms it is a "valid" debit card, then the message is being prompted by their card issuer. There are some issuers who will only allow cards to be processed as credit cards in ‘card not present’ environments like Yardi Payment Processing. Yardi cannot override this message as this is coming directly from the card issuer. This has been seen to be the case MasterCard Business debit cards.
If the resident cannot add the card as a debit card, but the card information is valid, they can try to add it as a credit card; however, payments made with the card will be subject to credit card fees and not debit card fees.