Hello Kevin,
We order from China and run into similar issues. What we did was create a "virtual" warehouse we named "In-Transit." When we pick up the product overseas, we immediately receive it into this warehouse. Doing a stock overview on this site gives us a quick and dirty list of what's inbound. You can even manipulate the Logistics Area IDs to show PO numbers or arrival dates so it's not all sitting in one big lump.
We don't activate Sales Confirmation for any products within that site, so our sales guys don't see it as "on-hand" inventory. When we receive it into the In-Transit warehouse, we immediately set up an intracompany stock transfer forward-dated for the estimated arrival day + maybe 1 safety day. If ATP is set up to include receipts, it should show that inventory available after the arrival date, and allow you to book orders against it.
I hope that made sense and/or helped somehow. Please feel free to PM me if you would like to discuss further.
Regards,
-Tony