Woocommerce Pre-Orders default set to Upfront

When using the Woocommerce Pre-Orders plugin, it appears (from the screenshots and forum topics online) that the default option available on the Products page is set to collect payments “On Release”.. This means that a payment for a pre-order product is only collected once the item is actually released.

Example: Product A releases on 31st August 2023. If a customer places an order on 12th July 2023, he makes no payment (or a “deposit fee”) when he places this order. Then, on the 31st August 2023, when the product changes to available, an email is sent to this customer with a payment link. This is great, but not idea for all customers.

In my case, I want to collect all payments up-front. When this customer places his order on the 12th of July 2023, I want to collect the full payment for his order and I will ship the order on the 31st of August 2023.

The above can be facilitated via the website by changing the drop-down to “Upfront” for When to collect payment. The problem is that for every single pre-order product that I generate I will have to change the drop down to Upfront. And if I forget to change that option, it will not collect any payment and causes further additional messes (eg I could end up sending the order out when I’ve not received any payments).

Therefore, I’m looking for a way to by default change the value to “Upfront”.

Is there a way this can be done? Is there perhaps a filter I can put in functions.php, is there a file I can modify to make it always choose Upfront (preferably staying consistent through plugin updates) or a browser extension I can add that will always make sure that the correct value is selected from the drop down list?

I dont see any details in the manual that describe this can be done, so I’m hoping someone here has experience with this (perhaps even with a different plugin).