First Steps After Installing Alpha Insights

You've installed Alpha Insights - great! Here's your quick-start checklist to get up and running in under 30 minutes.

Step 1: Activate Your License (1 minute)

1. Go to Alpha Insights → Settings → License
2. Paste your license key
3. Click Activate License
4. See green "Active" status

Why important: Unlocks all features and enables updates

Detailed activation guide

Step 2: Add Your Product Costs (5 minutes)

1. Go to Alpha Insights → Cost of Goods Manager
2. Enter cost for each product (what you pay your supplier)
3. Click Save Changes

Why important: Can't calculate profit without costs

Tip: Start with your top 20-50 products, add more costs later

Every time you make changes to your costs, we will rebuild your reports to ensure you have the most accurate data, so as you update these your reports will update automatically.

Detailed cost guide

Step 3: Configure Payment Fees (1 minute)

1. Go to Settings → General Settings
2. Scroll to Payment Gateway Costs section
3. You'll see a table with ALL your enabled payment gateways automatically listed
4. For each gateway, enter:
   • Percent Of Order Value: The percentage fee (e.g., 2.9 for 2.9%)
   • Static Fee: The fixed fee per transaction (e.g., 0.30)
5. Example common rates:
   • Stripe: 2.9% + $0.30 (typical US rate)
   • PayPal: 2.9% + $0.30
   • Square: 2.6% + $0.10
   • Bank Transfer: 0% + $0.00
6. Click Save Changes

Why important: Payment fees affect every order's profit

Note: Payment gateways are automatically detected from WooCommerce. If you enable/disable gateways, the list updates automatically.

Step 4: Set Up Shipping Costs (1 minutes) - Optional

Tell Alpha Insights your actual shipping costs:

1. Same page (General Settings)
2. Find Shipping Cost Calculation
3. • Percentage: If shipping costs you 70% of what you charge
   • Fixed amount: If you pay flat rate (e.g., $6 per order)
   • Manual: You can enter a fixed cost per order from the order page. If you are doing this leave the percentage and fixed amount fields blank.
4. Save

Step 5: View Your First Report (2 minutes)

1. Go to Alpha Insights → Sales Reports
2. You will be presented a number of reports which you can click on to start viewing store data. If you are not seeing reports, you can click on Install Default Reports to install the default reports.
3. See your profit metrics (based on costs you entered)

Success! You're now tracking profit!

Understanding your reports

Optional But Recommended

Connect Facebook Ads (5-10 minutes)

If you run Facebook Ads:

1. Settings → Facebook Integration
2. Click Connect Facebook Ads
3. Follow prompts to connect
4. Ad spend imports automatically

Facebook Ads setup

Connect Google Ads (5-10 minutes)

If you run Google Ads:

1. Settings → Google Ads
2. Connect account
3. Auto-sync campaign spend

Google Ads setup

Add Operating Expenses (5 minutes)

Add your biggest monthly expenses:

1. Go to Alpha Insights → Expense Manager
2. • Rent (if applicable)
   • Main software subscription (hosting, email marketing)
   • Salaries (if you have employees)

Tip: Start with the big ones, add smaller expenses over time, this is used to calculate your store's net profit.

Expense guide

Review General Settings (2 minutes)

Review your general settings to ensure they are configured correctly:

1. Go to Alpha Insights → Settings → General Settings
2. • Scan through your general settings, they are all typically okay by default, but you may like to adjust to suit.

What's Happening in the Background?

While you're setting up, Alpha Insights is:

• Scanning all your existing WooCommerce orders
• Calculating profit for orders that have cost data
• Building report cache
• Preparing historical analytics

This happens automatically in the background (won't slow your site)

Quick Verification

Check Everything is Working

1. Dashboard shows data: Revenue, profit, and orders display
2. Products have costs: Go to Cost Manager, see costs you entered
3. Orders show profit: Open any recent order, see Alpha Insights profit breakdown
4. Reports load: Open Sales Overview, see charts and data

If all four checks pass:You're all set!

Next Steps

Within First Week

• Add costs for more products
• Add remaining expenses
• Explore all pre-built reports
• Set up daily summary email

Within First Month

• Create first custom report
• Set up low-profit alerts
• Export your first P&L statement
• Share a report with team member

Ongoing

• Review dashboard daily (5 minutes)
• Deep dive weekly (30 minutes)
• Update costs when supplier prices change
• Add new expenses as they occur

Learning Resources

• Understanding reports
• Creating custom reports
• Review frequency guide
• Ask questions in support

Common First-Week Questions

"Why is some profit data missing?"

Products without costs show incomplete profit. Add more product costs to see complete data.

"Profit seems low/high?"

Verify costs are accurate. Check a few orders manually to ensure calculations look right.

"Can I delete test orders?"

Yes, but mark them as "Cancelled" or "Failed" status instead - Alpha Insights excludes these from profit reports automatically.

"Do I need to add costs for EVERY product?"

No! Start with top 20-50 sellers. Add more over time.

Quick Wins

Things you can do immediately:

• Identify your most profitable product (Products report)
• Find your best traffic source (Traffic Overview)
• Calculate actual profit margin (Dashboard)
• See which orders are unprofitable (filter Profit< $0)
• Check if ads are working (ROAS metric)

Get Help

Stuck on setup? We're here to help!

• Email: support@wpdavies.dev
• Live chat: wpdavies.dev
• Support tickets:Open ticket

Most setup questions answered within 24 hours!