> ## Knowledge Base Index > Fetch the complete knowledge base index at: https://help.timesact.com/sitemap.xml > Use this file to discover available pages before exploring further. > Pure-Markdown content can be obtained by appending a '.md' suffix to the content URLs listed in the sitemap (without the trailing slash). # Inventory and Fulfillment **How a pre-order is fulfilled, when its available quantity is reduced, and how out-of-stock items stay buyable. These are reusable pre-order building blocks, for the overview see** [How Pre-orders Work](https://help.timesact.com/en-us/article/how-pre-orders-work-1fo7ycq/)**. You set these under Functionality settings.** ## Deferred fulfillment A pre-order is placed now but fulfilled later. The shipping date you set travels with the order and is shown to the customer, so they know when to expect the item. When your stock arrives, you fulfill the order like any normal order. Nothing ships until you fulfill it. ## When to reduce stock: When the order is placed vs When the order is fulfilled This controls when a pre-order counts against your inventory. * When the order is placed — inventory is reduced when the order is placed. Use it when each pre-order should immediately reduce the stock you are counting on, so your numbers reflect commitments as they come in. * When the order is fulfilled — inventory is reduced when the order is fulfilled. Use it when you do not want pre-orders touching inventory until you actually ship. ![](https://storage.crisp.chat/users/helpdesk/website/-/c/9/b/3/c9b393c2e2547800/image_1f2h871.png) ![](https://storage.crisp.chat/users/helpdesk/website/-/c/9/b/3/c9b393c2e2547800/image_9yggjl.png) Scenario: you are pre-selling a product that has not been manufactured yet. When the order is fulfilled keeps your inventory untouched until the goods arrive and you fulfill the orders. If a pre-order variant later shows Sold Out or won't add to cart, another app or a manual change may have switched Continue selling back off, see [Testing and Troubleshooting](https://help.timesact.com/en-us/article/testing-and-troubleshooting-fvjm9y/). ## Continue selling For the out-of-stock stock modes, a variant at 0 inventory would normally be unbuyable in Shopify. The Continue selling auto-enable toggle handles this: when the pre-order activates, Timesact switches that variant to Shopify's "Continue selling when out of stock" setting so customers can still place the pre-order, and reverts it when the pre-order deactivates. * Without it: an out-of-stock pre-order variant can show Sold Out and block the sale even though you intended it to be a pre-order. * With it: the variant stays buyable while it is a pre-order, and returns to normal Shopify behaviour afterward. One prerequisite: this only works if the variant has Track quantity enabled in Shopify. Shopify's "Continue selling when out of stock" setting only applies to variants whose inventory is tracked. If Track quantity is off, Shopify already treats the variant as always available, so it never registers as out of stock and the out-of-stock pre-order modes have nothing to react to. So for these modes, keep Track quantity on for the variant. Scenario: a variant is set to pre-order when out of stock. It sells down to 0. With Continue selling on, shoppers keep seeing the Pre-order button and can reserve it. Turn the pre-order off later and the variant goes back to standard Shopify behaviour. ***What this means for your storefront and feeds*** Because Continue selling keeps the variant buyable, Shopify treats it as available, and "available" is what your theme writes into the page's product data and what sales channels read from your Shopify product feed. So while a pre-order is active, your product's structured data and channels like Google Merchant Center describe the item as in stock, even though its inventory is at 0. This is Shopify's normal signal for anything a shopper can buy, and it does not change the Pre-order button, the pre-order tag, or how the order is fulfilled. Timesact does not set or change your theme's structured data or your Google feed. If you need those channels to describe pre-orders differently (for example as "preorder" rather than "in stock"), that is set on the Shopify product-feed side, not in Timesact. Pre-order behaviour itself only applies on the Online Store, see [How Pre-orders Work](https://help.timesact.com/en-us/article/how-pre-orders-work-1fo7ycq/) for how pre-orders behave on the Shop App and other channels. ## When your stock arrives When the delivery lands, adjust the variant's Inventory in Shopify by the quantity you received, using the option that adds to the count rather than setting a new total. With When the order is placed, each pre-order has already reduced the count, so Available is negative and adding your delivery on top lands on what is genuinely still for sale (a variant that took 169 pre-orders from 0 reads -169, add the 1,000 units you received and Available becomes 831). Setting Available to 1,000 instead would ignore the 169 you already owe and oversell. With When the order is fulfilled, pre-orders have not reduced Available yet, so enter the quantity you received as normal. To let the product sell normally again: Only when out of stock reverts to Add to Cart on its own once Available is above 0. The other modes keep the pre-order in charge until you switch the Pre-order functionality off in the customer experience template, or remove the product from it. ## Related * When the pre-order shows based on stock: [When Pre-order shows](https://help.timesact.com/en-us/article/stock-management-12vah5j/) * When the customer is told it ships: [Shipping dates](https://help.timesact.com/en-us/article/shipping-dates-1gzu9gv/) * Overview of all the building blocks: [How Pre-orders Work](https://help.timesact.com/en-us/article/how-pre-orders-work-1fo7ycq/) * Which location the order is assigned to and fulfilled from: [Markets and Locations](https://help.timesact.com/en-us/article/markets-and-locations-1rw8ev3/) * Printing a packing slip before the ship date: [Remove from On Hold](https://help.timesact.com/en-us/article/remove-from-on-hold-13rrl1q/)