Is there a way to over-ride a zero inventory balance, for Layaway, etc?

To be more precise, I have customers request that I put aside a certain quantity of something for them, and I'm willing to do that. But when the balance of the inventory on that item is exhausted, the product shows as being sold out, of course. I don't want to add back in the numbers I have in reserve in the hopes that the desired customer will snap them up before someone else gets them. What I've been doing is just quoting them the price and shipping and accepting payment by Paypal. But that means the orders don't show up in my Zencart reports. It's not a huge problem since I have a separate bookkeeping system to keep track of things, but it would be nice if I could run them through Zencart. Is there any way to do that?

If understand correctly, they request the item(s) to be set aside, but pay for it anyways at that time? Or are they paying later when they have come back to purchase the reserved item(s)?

If paid for up front, then could sell it like normal and then upon completion of the sale could set the status to something recognizable as a "do not ship". If they come back to say they don't want it by the time you have set for their return, then can cancel/delete the order and the stock goes back to the cart if you are setup that way.

I believe you're talking about Layaway concept (hence I've updated the title of the thread accordingly).

I've not used it, but maybe this module might help? https://www.zen-cart.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=2027
(ie: have customer place an actual order, with or without payment, and then simply arrange to collect final payment when they come to pick it up or you ship it)

That might do it, thanks. I'll check it out. It isn't really a layaway situation, but if that plug in will do what I need, I don't care what it's called :)

The problem really is that the customer can't place an order if the inventory doesn't show up, and if it does show up, someone else may grab it first. So I'm not sure how this plug in is going to make any difference, but I'll look at it anyway.