## General Settings Overview

The General Settings page is your central hub for configuring how Alpha Insights calculates profit, tracks costs, and integrates with your WooCommerce store. This guide explains every setting available and helps you optimize your configuration for accurate profit tracking.

### Accessing General Settings

1. Go to Alpha Insights → Settings in your WordPress dashboard
2. You'll land on the General Settings tab by default
3. Use Save Changes (at the top or bottom of the page) after editing any section

### Initial Configuration - Default Costs

These settings provide fallback values for costs when you haven't entered specific values for products or orders. They help ensure every order has cost data for accurate profit calculations.

#### Default Product Cost Price (%)

What it does: Sets a fallback cost for products that don't have a specific cost price entered. It is calculated as a percentage of the product's retail price.

Cost price hierarchy (in order):

1. Value saved for the product in the Alpha Insights Cost of Goods Manager (recommended)
2. WooCommerce Native COGS if set (WooCommerce 10.0+)
3. Parent variable product meta, if the product is a variation and a value is found on the parent
4. Default Cost Price (this setting), e.g. 30% of RRP, when no other value is found

Configure COGS per product: Use the Configure COGS Per Product button to open the Cost of Goods Manager and enter costs per product. See the Cost of Goods Manager documentation for details.

#### Payment Gateway Costs

What it does: Defines the costs associated with each of your payment gateways. Orders start with this cost, but you can override it on the order admin page.

How it works: Alpha Insights detects all enabled payment gateways from WooCommerce and shows them in a table.

Configuration (per gateway):

- Percent Of Order Value: Percentage charged by the processor (e.g. 2.9 for 2.9%)
- Static Fee: Fixed fee per transaction (e.g. 0.30)

Formula: Payment fee = (Order total × Percent) + Static fee

Actual fee override: If your payment plugin stores the actual fee (e.g. in order meta), Alpha Insights will use that value instead of the calculated one when available.

#### Default Shipping Cost

What it does: Fallback for the shipping fees you pay to your carrier. Orders start with this cost; you can override it per order when the actual cost is known.

How it works: Alpha Insights lists your available shipping methods (with instance IDs). For each method you can set:

- Percent Of Order Value: Cost as a percentage of total order value
- Percent Of Shipping Charged: What percentage of the shipping amount you charge is your actual cost (e.g. if you charge $10 and it costs $7, enter 70)
- Static Fee: Fixed fee per shipment (e.g. 6.00)

Tip: Override these on individual orders when you have the final carrier cost (or use integrations like ShipStation or StarShipIt to sync real shipping costs).

### Report Settings

Controls which orders are included in profitability and how the report cache is built.

#### Paid Order Status For Reporting

What it does: Defines which WooCommerce order statuses are considered paid for report calculations. Only these statuses are included when reviewing profitability.

Important: Refunded status is required; Alpha Insights uses it for refund handling. Include the statuses that represent confirmed, paid orders (e.g. Processing, Completed) and leave out Pending payment, Cancelled, Failed unless you have a specific need.

#### Cache Build Batch Size

What it does: Number of orders processed at a time when building the report cache. Default is 250 (min 1, max 10000).

When to change: Lower this if you see errors or timeouts during cache building; processing may take longer. Increase only if you have strong server resources and want faster cache rebuilds.

### Profit Calculation Settings

Fine-tunes how costs are treated when orders are refunded.

#### Costs to include when an order is fully refunded

What it does: By default, when an order is fully refunded, all costs are set to 0. These checkboxes let you choose which costs are still counted as expenses when an order is fully refunded.

Options:

- Product Cost Of Goods
- Product Custom Costs
- Shipping Costs
- Payment Gateway Fees
- Custom Order Costs

Note: Partially refunded orders use separate logic: only costs for the refunded items are adjusted.

Recommendation: Often you still incur shipping and payment fees on refunds; enabling Shipping Costs and Payment Gateway Fees is common.

### Custom Order & Product Costs

Add extra cost types with default values. Each new cost appears on the order (and product) edit screens and can be overridden per order or product.

#### Create Custom Order Costs

What it does: Creates additional order-level costs with default values. Each cost has a Name, Percent Of Order Value, and Static Fee. New costs show on the order edit page in the admin.

To add: Fill in the "new" row (Name, % Of Order Value, Static Fee), then click Save Changes. A unique key is generated from the name.

To remove: Click Delete next to the cost row, then Save Changes.

See the Custom Order Costs guide for examples.

#### Create Custom Product Costs

What it does: Creates additional product-level costs with default values. Each has a Name, Percent Of Sell Price, and Static Fee. These show on the product edit page and in the order admin area.

To add: Fill in the "new" row and Save Changes.

To remove: Click Delete next to the cost, then Save Changes.

See the Custom Product Costs guide for examples.

### Alpha Analytics & Event Tracking

Full WooCommerce analytics for event tracking and session data. Controls what is tracked and how attribution is stored.

#### Enable WooCommerce Event Tracking

What it does: Enables product analytics: product clicks, add to carts, purchases, and related tracking. Adds a small additional load to your server.

Options: True (enabled) or False (disabled). When False, only order-level profit tracking runs; no session or event data is collected.

#### Exclude These Roles From Tracking

What it does: Prevents the selected WordPress user roles from being tracked. Useful so staff (e.g. Administrator, Shop Manager) don’t inflate analytics.

Configuration: Select one or more roles from the multi-select. Logged-in users with those roles won’t have their sessions or events tracked.

#### Only Track & Report On Engaged Sessions

What it does: When enabled, page views are only tracked if there is mouse movement or clicks, and reporting only includes sessions that are marked as engaged or have duration greater than 0 seconds.

Options: True or False. Use True to focus on meaningful engagement and reduce noise from bots or quick bounces.

#### Attribution Window Timeout (days)

What it does: How many days the attribution window stays open. The attribution window stores the landing page and referral source for the session for this period.

Options: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 14, or 30 days. Choose based on your typical sales cycle (e.g. 7 or 14 days for most stores).

### WordPress Admin Display Extensions

These options control which Alpha Insights columns appear in the standard WordPress admin list tables. The checkboxes display or hide extensions to the default columns.

#### Product Admin Columns

What it does: Choose which columns to show on the Products → All Products list.

Available columns:

- Cost Of Goods
- Margin (%)
- Total Qty Sold
- Total Revenue
- Total Profit

Select the columns you want; only selected ones appear in the products list.

#### Order Admin Columns

What it does: Choose which columns to show on the WooCommerce → Orders list.

Available columns:

- New vs Returning
- Traffic Source
- Campaign

#### User Admin Columns

What it does: Choose which columns to show on the Users list in the WordPress dashboard.

Available columns:

- Sessions
- Orders
- Lifetime Value
- Average Order Value
- Conversion Rate
- Registration Date

### Other Settings

#### Plugin Access Permissions

What it does: Controls which user roles can view and use Alpha Insights. Users with roles not selected will not see any part of the plugin.

Note: Administrators always have access regardless of this setting.

Configuration: Select which roles should have access using the multi-select.

#### Load Modern WP Admin Skin

What it does: Loads a custom stylesheet that overrides core admin appearance to modernize the Alpha Insights admin experience.

Options: True or False. Disable if it conflicts with other plugins or you prefer default WordPress styling.

#### Prevent annoying WordPress notices

What it does: Hides update notices, license notices, and similar admin clutter when viewing Alpha Insights pages.

Options: True or False. Alpha Insights’ own notices still display when relevant.

### Debugging, Tools & Cache

Maintenance and troubleshooting tools.

#### Delete All Report Caches

What it does: Deletes all cached order and product data used for reports so the next report run uses fresh data. Non-destructive; recommended when you’ve updated costs or settings and want reports to reflect the latest data.

Button: Delete Cache

#### Delete All Order Calculation Overrides

What it does: Removes all manual overrides you’ve entered on order admin pages (e.g. shipping cost, payment fee, custom costs). Does not change WooCommerce order data itself.

Warning: This permanently deletes those overrides. There is no undo.

Button: Delete All Order Calculation Overrides

#### Delete All Order Line Item COGS Overrides

What it does: Removes cost-of-goods overrides made at the line item level on orders. Does not change WooCommerce order or product data.

Warning: This permanently deletes line item COGS overrides.

Button: Delete All Order Line Item COGS

#### Upgrade Database

What it does: Manually runs the database upgrade to match the version required by the plugin. The page shows Installed Version and Required Version.

When to use: If support suggests it, or after an update if you see errors about missing tables or columns. Upgrades usually run automatically.

Button: Update Database

### Saving Your Settings

After making changes:

1. Click Save Changes (at the top or bottom of the page)
2. Wait for the confirmation message
3. Some changes (e.g. cost defaults, refund settings) may trigger cache clearance or recalculation in the background

### Settings That Affect Reports

Changing default costs, custom order/product costs, or refunded-order cost options can trigger cache clearance and recalculation. Depending on order volume, this may take a few minutes.