Systems and methods for activating monitoring of a security system by a central monitoring station are provided. In particular, such systems and methods can include validating a first communication path between a sensor of the security system and a control panel of the security system to allow the security system to be initially set up to operate without monitoring by the central monitoring station and separately validating a second communication path between the control panel and the central monitoring station in response to the control panel or a cloud server receiving an API call from the central monitoring station to enable such monitoring at a later time.