General Settings Explanation

The majority of this tab is self-explanatory and common to any piece of software.

WHMCS SSL System URL – If you have installed an SSL certificate then you may enter the URL here to enable encrypted connections between WHMCS and your customers (and the admin area). It must be identical to your non-ssl URL with the exception of the https prefix.

Limit Activity Log – The maximum number of entries that will be stored in Utilities > Activity Log.

Records to Display per Page – The number of records that will be displayed on pages such as view all clients, view all invoices etc.

Maintenance Mode – Enabling this option will prevent your customers from accessing the client area and display the error message you can set beneath. Useful when performing upgrades or changes you don’t want them to see.

System Charset – Leave at the default value UTF-8 unless your language contains characters not supported by this charset. If you do change it, files need to be resaved under that charset. To do that, open the language file you use from the lang folder in Notepad and then go to File > Save As and choose Encoding Type "ANSI". Save and then reupload and it should be fine again.

Default Country – The default option in the country dropdown on the registration and checkout pages.

Default Language – The language that all visitors will see your WHMCS installation in.

Enable Language Menu – A dropdown menu will appear allowing visitors to choose the language of your installation. You can translate into your own language by copying one of the existing text files in the /lang folder and renaming it. For more information refer to this page.

Order Days Grace – You can grant your customers a grace period to make their first payment on an order before an invoice becomes overdue (thus avoiding late fees). Useful for the delay in setting up standing order and direct debit instructions.

Enable TOS Acceptance – Enabling will cause a checkbox to appear on the checkout page with the link to your Terms of Service set beneath. If the customer does not accept the TOS the order will not be created.

Auto Redirect on Checkout – Choose the behaviour when a customer clicks the place order button on the checkout page:

• Not automatically redirect and just show the order completed page – Customer will be shown the order completed page with a message to login to the client area to pay the outstanding invoice.
• Select to automatically redirect the user to the invoice – Customer will be taken to the invoice where they can review the details and click the payment button to pay.
• Select to automatically redirect the user to the gateway – Customer will be taken directly to the payment gateway to enter their payment details.

Allow Notes on Checkout – A text box will appear allowing your clients to enter a message to you. It is included in the New Order Notification email and on the order page.

Monthly Pricing Breakdown – Enabling this divides your quarterly, semi-annual, annual, and biennial prices into the equivalent monthly price. For example, a product with an annual price of $120 would be divided by 12 months and the price displayed as $10/month.

Block Existing Domains – Enabling prevents visitors mistakenly or maliciously placing a new order for a domain name that is already in your system.

Skip Fraud Check for Existing – If you use one of our fraud prevention modules, enabling this option will skip these checks for customers with at least 1 active order.

For information regarding domain management in WHMCS refer to this page.

Domain Registration Options – Unticking these options will hide the associated option from the order form.

Auto Renew on Payment – Enabling will renew domains automatically at the registrar (eNom, ResellerClub etc) when the renewal invoice is paid.

Default Auto Renewal Setting – If enabled, your customers will automatically be invoiced for the renewal of domain names in line with your automation settings. You can override this on an individual domain level by ticking the Do Not Renew checkbox on the client’s domain tab. For more information refer to this page.

Bulk Domain Search – Enables/Disables the Bulk Domain Checker option for your visitors.

Bulk Check TLDs – Select additional TLDs to be automatically checked when a customer looks up a domain’s availability. This is a great way to upsell your customers. Hold Ctrl and left-click to select multiple tlds.

For information regarding emails and messages in WHMCS refer to this page.

Mail Type – Choose how emails are sent by your installation:

• Use PHP mail() function to send emails from inside WHMCS. This requires no further configuration, but some email providers may treat email sent this way with more suspicion.
• SMTP uses your SMTP server to send emails and requires you fill in the related fields below.

Mail Signature – Enter the text to be appended to all emails sent to customers by WHMCS.

Email CSS Code – Enter the CSS code to be used to format all emails sent to customers by WHMCS if desired.

System Emails From Name – The sender name that will appear on all emails sent to customers by WHMCS. I.e. Your Company

System Emails From Email – The email address that will appear on all emails sent to customers by WHMCS. This address does not necessarily have to exist I.e. noreply@yourcompany.com

BCC Messages – An email address entered here will receive a blind carbon copy of all emails sent to customers by WHMCS

Presales Form Destination – Choose a support department that messages sent via the pre-sales contact form will be directed to.
OR
Presales Contact Form Email – Enter the email address that messages sent via the pre-sales contact form will be forwarded to.

For information regarding the support centre in WHMCS refer to this page.

Support Module – If a third party support system is installed, select it here.

Ticket Reply List Order – Choose the order support ticket messages are displayed.

Client Tickets Require Login – Enabling this will prompt all users to login before they can view a support ticket. Will prevent unregistered users from viewing their tickets and restrict them to using email.

Knowledgebase Suggestions – Enabling will display the title and first line of articles from your knowledgebase relevant to the support ticket message a customer is typing. It is displayed between the ticket body and the submit button. You must have several articles in your KB before this feature will function.

Support Ticket Rating – A star-rating system will appear below each staff reply when enabled. Customers can rate the responses on a scale of 1-5 and a report is available with the results.

Allowed File Attachment Types – Specify the file types that customers are permitted to attach to support tickets.

Network Issues Require Login – When enabled, only customers who are logged in will be able to view the network issues pages.

For information regarding invoicing in WHMCS refer to this page.

Continuous Invoice Generation – Enabling this will continue to generate invoices for a product each billing cycle even if the previous invoice was unpaid. Useful when the product has a minimum term and the client is obliged to pay all invoices. When disabled no further invoices will be generated until the invoice is paid. For more information refer to this page.

Invoice Starting # - Only fill in this field if you want to change the number of the next invoice to be generated.

Invoice # Incrementation – Chose by how much each invoice number will increase. Using the default option 1 invoices will be numbered: 1,2,3,4…. Changing this to 2 invoices will be numbered: 1,3,5,7….

Enable PDF Invoices – When enabled, a copy of the invoice will be attached to invoice notification emails in pdf format.

Clients Choose Gateway – Enabling will display a dropdown menu on the invoice allowing customers to choose which gateway they use to pay each invoice.

Sequential Paid Invoice Numbering, Sequential Invoice Number Format and Next Paid Invoice Number – Paid invoices will be given a different number to unpaid invoices. For more information refer to this page.

Late Fee Type – If you levy a fee on late payments, choose whether it is a percentage or fixed amount.

Late Fee Amount – Leave as 0 to disable the late fee function, the amount entered here will be levied on customers who fail to pay an invoice by the due date.

Accepted Credit Card Types – Choose the type of credit cards accepted by your payment gateway. Hold Ctrl and left-click to select multiple cards.

Issue Number/Start Date – Enabling this will prompt customers to enter the issue number and start date required from some card types.

For information regarding the credit system in WHMCS refer to this page.

Enable/Disable – Tick to enable the add funds system allowing customers to buy credit held in their account which can then be used to pay invoices. Invoices generated after credit has been added will automatically be used towards paying the balance. Both you and your customers can manually use the credit to pay invoices generated before credit was added.

The other settings define the amount a customer can add in a single transaction and the maximum limit of account credit.

For information regarding the affiliate system in WHMCS refer to this page.

Enable/Disable – Tick to enable the affiliate system. Your customers will be rewarded for referring new custom to you using a unique link.

Affiliate Earning Percentage – This is the default recurring commission that all customers will earn. If this field is set to 5, then your customer will earn 5 percent of each invoice their referred customer pays you. The commission can be overridden on a product level and customer level so that different commissions are received for certain products or customers.

Affiliate Bonus Deposit – Choose to offer a bonus when a customer joins your affiliate program.

Affiliate Payout Amount – When a customer’s commission balance is below this level, they cannot withdraw the money. Once this level is reached a Request Withdrawal button will appear which, when clicked will open a support ticket, prompting you to pay the balance.

Affiliate Commission Delay – Define how many days the referred customer must stay with you before the affiliate receives commission. If the order is cancelled before this value then the affiliate will not receive commission.

Affiliate Links – The banner codes that your affiliates can use to refer customers to you. The syntax is explained beneath the text area.

Captcha Form Protection – Requires GD2 on your server. Also referred to image verification; shows an image containing 5 characters that you clients will be required to enter to register or submit a support ticket when enabled. Helps prevents automated submissions and spam.

KB SEO Friendly URLs – Enabling this requires mod_rewrite enabled on your server, it will rewrite /knowledgebase.php?action=view&id=1" to "/knowledgebase/1/How_do_I_login.html" for example. Making your knowledgebase, announcements and downloads more friendly to search engines. For more information refer to this page.

Allow Client Registration – When enabled customers can sign up at /registration.php without ordering a product or service.

Show Cancellation Link – Enabling will activate the cancellation system. Customers can request cancellation from the product details page, they then appear in Clients > Cancellation Requests along with an email notification and will be processed automatically when the cron runs. For more information refer to this page.

Monthly Affiliate Reports – Sends a monthly report email containing the status of the customer’s affiliate account when active.

Client Details Change Notify – Enabling this option will send an email notification to all admins when a customer changes their contact details.

Exceeding Invalid Login Attempts Ban Time – Set to 0 to disable the login ban feature. If someone makes 3 incorrect attempts to login to your WHMCS admin, this is the time in minutes before they can try to login again (dictionary attack protection).

Client Dropdown Format – Choose the format that your customer’s names appear in the client dropdown throughout the admin.

Disable Full Client Dropdown – Check this option to remove the aforementioned client dropdown. This is used on large databases where the number of clients slows down the loading of pages.

Required Password Strength – Set to 0 to disable the password strength checker on the order form. Ensure your clients enter strong passwords by setting this to 50; use a higher number to force even more secure client area passwords.

API IP Access Restriction – Advanced. If using the WHMCS API from an off-server location, you must specify the IP address here, otherwise access will be denied.