How to Add Custom Columns to the WooCommerce Orders Table

What Does the Feature Do?

The default WooCommerce admin orders table shows order number, date, status, and customer basics. The Enable Custom Order Columns feature adds optional columns so more data is visible at a glance. You turn on the columns you want, and each one appears in the orders list showing live order data.

The full set of available columns covers discounts, item counts, billing address, customer identity, payment, notes, shipping, tax, status history, categories, and downloadable or virtual item counts.

When to Enable It

Enable Custom Order Columns when you process enough orders that opening each one to check payment, shipping, or customer details wastes time:

• Customer service teams that need billing email and addresses visible on the list
• Fulfillment teams that want shipping method and shipping total at a glance
• Finance and accounting work that uses payment method, discount, and tax columns
• Reporting needs that benefit from a visual scan across many orders

Keep it off if the default columns already give your team what it needs.

How to Add Custom Columns to the WooCommerce Orders Table

1. 1
   Step 1

   Enable the Feature

   1. In WordPress admin, open Classic Monks > WooCommerce.
   2. Open the Orders settings area.
   3. Toggle on Enable Custom Order Columns. The column toggles expand below it.

   

2. 2
   Step 2

   Turn On the Columns You Want

   Enable the individual toggles for the columns you need. Each column is independent, so you can show only the data that matters to your team. For example: enable Payment Method, Shipping Method, and Shipping Total for fulfillment, or Customer Email and Customer Type for support.

   

3. 3
   Step 3

   Save and Verify

   Click Save Changes, then open WooCommerce > Orders. The enabled columns appear in the orders table after the order number. Use the sortable column headers to reorder rows by values such as total discount, shipping total, or customer email.

Available Columns

Each of these is an independent toggle under Enable Custom Order Columns:

Configuration Options

Each column is enabled by turning on its toggle. All 19 columns, plus the default WooCommerce columns, are registered when the feature is on; only the enabled ones are inserted into the orders table.

What Gets Affected

• The admin orders table: enabled columns appear after the order number
• Sorting: most numeric and text columns are sortable from their headers
• The orders list becomes more informative at a glance for enabled data

What Does NOT Get Affected

• The default WooCommerce columns: these stay in place
• The order detail page and order editor: custom columns are list-only
• Customer-facing pages: the feature is admin-only; order emails and the account page are unchanged
• The WooCommerce REST API: order data returned by the API is unchanged by the column toggles

Advanced Options (Developers)

The feature registers four hooks in functions/woocommerce/woo-orders.php:

add_filter( 'manage_edit-shop_order_columns', 'cm_register_custom_order_columns' );
add_action( 'manage_shop_order_posts_custom_column', 'cm_custom_order_column_content' );
add_filter( 'manage_edit-shop_order_sortable_columns', 'cm_custom_order_column_sorting' );
add_action( 'pre_get_posts', 'cm_custom_order_column_orderby' );

• manage_edit-shop_order_columns calls cm_register_custom_order_columns(), which inserts the enabled columns immediately after the order number.
• manage_shop_order_posts_custom_column calls cm_custom_order_column_content(), which populates each column from the order data.
• manage_edit-shop_order_sortable_columns calls cm_custom_order_column_sorting(), making the numeric and text columns sortable. Sortable columns include discount, items, city, postcode, country, state, username, payment, shipping total, tax total, email, customer type, and customer since. Notes, status history, categories, downloads, and virtual are registered for display but not made sortable.
• pre_get_posts calls cm_custom_order_column_orderby(), which maps the sortable column to the underlying order meta (for example, shipping total sorts by _order_shipping).

The registration and sorting functions gate on the Enable Custom Order Columns toggle. If it is off, the columns are not added and sorting is unchanged.

Frequently asked questions

Troubleshooting

4 problems and how to fix each one.