Prevent Stock From Being Deducted on Unpaid Orders
When you create your store's offline payment methods and online payment methods, the advanced settings of the payment method allow you to specify whether orders paid with that method go into the store's New or Unpaid order statuses.
Typically, merchants would use the Unpaid status for offline payment methods like Check or Money order so that the order doesn't mistakenly get processed and shipped while you wait for the funds to arrive and clear.
By default, when an order goes into Unpaid status (and store-wide Inventory Control is enabled), the stock for the products in that order is still deducted from your store's inventory. However, merchants have the option of changing this and not removing stock when the order is Unpaid. Here's how:
Log into your Shift4Shop Online Store Manager.
Using the left navigation menu, go to Settings > General > Store Settings.
Once you're at the Store Settings page, click on the General tab found at the top.
Scroll down to the "Inventory Control" near the bottom of the page.
Place a mark in the Do not deduct stock for Unpaid Orders checkbox.
Finally, click Save at the top right of the page.
After the above steps are complete, the store will no longer deduct inventory from any future orders that go into the Unpaid status. When you move the order from Unpaid Status to New, that is when their respective product stock will be deducted.