Keep Offline Payment Orders from Going into the New Status
Offline payment methods are payment methods that can be used on your website but are not processed through a payment gateway. These payments must be processed manually after the new order comes through. Some common examples of offline payment methods are Cash, COD, Money Order, Check, etc.
For processing purposes, you may want to set up your store to automatically put new orders - in which an offline payment method is used - into an 'Unpaid' status. The logic being that you want to wait until the funds are received before the sale is final. When the customer's offline payment method has been cleared and processed, you can then move the order to the 'New' status for normal processing.
Unpaid Status
An "Unpaid" order status is automatically set up in your admin panel, but you will want to ensure it is visible.
Go to Orders and click on the Edit Order Status button located along the top right.
Next to the Unpaid Status make sure the Visible checkbox is checked.
Click Save (at the top right) to commit your changes.
Set Offline Payment Methods to Unpaid
Once you have made the unpaid order status visible, you can connect the offline payments methods to that status.
Go to Settings > Payments and click on the Select Payment button under Payment Methods.
Make sure you have inserted your offline payment methods. (If not, click the Add New button to insert one).
Click on the name of the payment method or look to the right of your payment method and click on its Settings link.
When the settings portion has expanded, click on the Advanced Settings button.
Under "Order Status," select Unpaid and click OK.
Click Save at the top right of the page.