General Tab

The General tab allows you to configure basic settings within WHMCS.

You can access this tab at Configuration () > System Settings > General Settings or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > General Settings.

Company Name

Enter your company name as you wish it to appear throughout the WHMCS Admin and Client Areas.

Email Address

This is the default email address that will appear as the sender on all of the email that WHMCS sends to you and your customers.

Domain

The URL for the domain that hosts your WHMCS installation. When a visitor follows an affiliate link, the system will redirect them to this URL.

Logo URL

The URL for the logo image that will appear in email messages, on invoices, and in the WHMCS Client Area.

Pay To Text

The text to display on invoices as the Pay To details.

WHMCS System URL

This setting defines the URL to use to access your WHMCS installation. If possible, WHMCS attempts to set this value automatically during installation. This is based on the location of the files on your server. For example, http://www.example.com/members/.

In WHMCS 8.8 and later, you can also set this value at Configuration () > Setup Wizard.

We recommend installing an SSL certificate. This will let you enter the SSL URL to enable encrypted connections between WHMCS and your customers and between your staff and the Admin Area. For example, https://www.example.com/members/.

For more information about including this value in custom development, see WHMCS Base URL Template Variable.

System Theme

The system theme that you want to use for WHMCS's Client Area. We ship two by default:

Twenty-One was introduced in WHMCS 8.1. We recommend that you use this system theme. For more information, see New Twenty-One Client Area Theme.
Six was introduced in WHMCS 6.0. We plan to remove this system theme in a future WHMCS version.

In WHMCS 8.1 and higher, when you select a System Theme, WHMCS will validate it for compatibility with the order form templates you use.

For information on developing your own custom system theme, see Themes in our Developer Documentation.

Limit Activity Log

The maximum number of system-related entries to store in Configuration () > System Logs or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Utilities > Logs. System-related entries display the user of System/Automated and client of None.

WHMCS purges system-related entries daily during the execution of the cron, when the activity log is viewed within the Admin Area, or when the Limit Activity Log setting is modified.

Entries for specific clients are stored indefinitely for auditing purposes. You can prune client-specific log entries at Utilities > System > System Cleanup.

Records to Display per Page

The number of records to display in the Clients list, lists of invoices, and other lists in WHMCS.

Maintenance Mode

Enabling this option will prevent your customers from accessing the Client Area and display the Maintenance Mode Message (or redirect to another URL, if you enter a Maintenance Mode Redirect URL.

Admins will still be able to see the client area. Both the API and hooks will continue to function unobstructed while Maintenance Mode is enabled.

Maintenance Mode Message

If you enable Maintenance Mode, your customers will see the message you enter here in the Client Area.

Maintenance Mode Redirect URL

When Maintenance Mode is enabled, the system will redirect clients to the URL that you enter here instead of displaying the maintenance message.

Friendly URLs

The Friendly URLs feature alters WHMCS URLs to use a human-readable format. For more information, see Friendly URLs.

You can choose the following URI path modes:

Full Friendly Rewrite — This option will generate highly systematic URLs, which are excellent for search engines and visitors alike. They are completely decoupled from the file system.
- This mode is only valid in environments that support Apache mod_rewrite behavior.
- For example: http://example.com/knowledgebase
Friendly index.php — This option will generate systematic URLs but is coupled to the filesystem. It is a good option for search engines and visitors if your environment does not support Apache mod_rewrite.
- This mode is only valid in environments that support Apache AcceptPathInfo behavior.
- For example: http://example.com/index.php/knowledgebase
Basic URLs — This option will generate URLs that all web environments support. Most search engine technologies are capable of moderate to advanced indexing when analyzing these types of URLs. However, some internet users find these URLs unattractive and cumbersome.
- For example: http://example.com/index.php?rp=/knowledgebase

When you select an option, the system saves it automatically. If it does not match the detected setting (see below) it displays Manual Override next to the setting.

Detected Mode

WHMCS automatically detects the best option for your server environment and highlights it with a green background.

To detect the best option again, click the circular arrow icon. This performs an environment detection and immediately updates your Friendly URLs settings.
If the Auto-Managed Rewrite setting is not enabled and the system detects that modifications to your rewrite file (.htaccess) may occur during the optimization routine, the system will prompt you to enable it before any changes are applied.

Advanced Settings

Click Advanced Settings to further customize how this feature behaves. We only recommend changing the advanced settings if you are confident maintaining your own mod_rewrite rules.

The Path Mode tab allows you to manually override the system-detected URI path mode and shows which modes are supported by your environment.
The Rewrite File tab allows you to manually select how WHMCS should control the rewrite file (.htaccess) as well as a copy of the WHMCS rewrite rules. Rewrite rules alter inbound HTTP requests so that the application can effectively process Friendly URLs.

Path Mode

The Path Mode tab allows you to manually override the system-detected URI Path Mode and shows which modes are known to be support by your environment.

The settings here perform the same result as the Simple Mode Selection but with more explicit control. You may enable the manual override option while selecting a URI Path Mode that is the same as the system detected value.

Rewrite File

The Rewrite File tab allows you to manually select how WHMCS should control the rewrite file (.htaccess) as well as a copy of the WHMCS rewrite rules. Rewrite rules alter inbound HTTP requests so that the application can effectively process friendly URLs.

Upgrade to WHMCS 7.2
When you upgrade to WHMCS 7.2, WHMCS will perform an evaluation of your current environment. For more information, see Friendly URLs.

Auto-Managed Rewrite

When you enable Auto-Managed Rewrite, the system applies new rules from a WHMCS update to the .htaccess file of the WHMCS root directory during the update.

Manually enabling or disabling Auto-Managed Rewrite will not automatically reevaluate or synchronize the WHMCS ruleset.

Synchronize

If the current contents of the .htaccess file are not in sync with the WHMCS ruleset, click Synchronize to synchronize it.

When the system applies rules to the .htaccess file, it places them between comment markers that clearly indicate the beginning and end of the WHMCS ruleset. If you require custom rulesets for other destinations within the WHMCS root directory, make sure that you place them before or after these comment markers.

WHMCS cannot automatically detect compatibility with other rules. WHMCS Technical Support can only provided limited suggestions based on WHMCS’s requirements.

WHMCS Rules

A copy of the WHMCS ruleset for your current version of WHMCS is displayed for your inspection and application. Some web environments provide alternative mechanisms for performing URI rewrites on inbound HTTP requests. Your system administrative staff should be able to update your alternative web environment based on this information to fully utilize the Friendly URLs feature of WHMCS.

These .htaccess rules apply to WHMCS version 7.2 and above.

### BEGIN - WHMCS managed rules - DO NOT EDIT BETWEEN WHMCS MARKERS ###
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine on

# RewriteBase is set to "/" so rules do not need updating if the
# installation directory is relocated.  It is imperative that
# there is also a RewriteCond rule later that can effectively get
# the actual value by comparison against the request URI.
# 
# If there are _any_ other RewriteBase directives in this file,
# the last entry will take precedence!
RewriteBase /

# Redirect directories to an address with slash
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^(.+[^/])$  $1/ [R]

# Send all remaining (routable paths) through index.php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
# Determine and use the actual base
RewriteCond $0#%{REQUEST_URI} ([^#]*)#(.*)\1$
RewriteRule ^.*$ %2index.php [QSA,L]
</IfModule>
### END - WHMCS managed rules - DO NOT EDIT BETWEEN WHMCS MARKERS ###

IIS Environments

To enable Friendly URLs for IIS environments:

Ensure that the URL rewrite module is installed for IIS.
Open IIS Manager.
Go to the site you want to add the rule to.
In the right pane, double-click and select urlrewrite.
On the right side inbound rules, select import rules.
Extract the mod_rewrite rules from the WHMCS's rewrite file at Configuration () > System Settings > General Settings or, prior to WHMCS 8.0, Setup > General Settings, in the Advanced Settings section.
Paste those rules into the rewrite rules field.
Click Apply.

Documentation