Can I prevent inventory from going negative on made-to-order products?

[it-jkboots]

Is there a way to disable inventory going negative? For some of our products we stock them, but also sell them if they are out of stock. If the product isn't in stock the product is made to order specifically for that order. Since the product is made to order when not in stock, nothing is pulled from inventory and there is no reason for the inventory to be decremented from 0 to -1. In theory I think Shopify would want us to add that new made to order product to the inventory for that product before it gets shipped out to the customer, but that's an extra step for our fulfillment team that seems unnecessary.