Tag Alternative

We are a non-profit club that puts on events for our members. I needed to generate P&L reports for each event. My solution was to create tags for each event and then apply those tags to the applicable transactions. (99% of our transactions come into QB from PayPal or our Bank checking/savings accounts.) The tags worked great, and I loved the Tag page. For example, when categorizing a PayPal transaction, I just needed to either type in a new tag value or select from a dropdown of existing tags. Now that tags are going away, I followed directions and created an Event custom field and checked all the boxes it would apply to (e.g. Expense, Bill, etc.) Problem is I only see this field if I am creating a new expense. It doesn't show when categorizing PayPal or Bank transactions and it also doesn't show if I'm doing a new deposit. What am I doing wrong?  I have the essentials subscription, but am willing to upgrade if that is needed to either make Custom fields work or if anyone has a better idea. (Classes?) We have 30 new events each year, so whatever I come with has to be scalable. Any solution also can't add to the workflow significantly. I would appreciate any help or suggestions. (Please note I've only been using QB for 6 months and you may need to dumb down any instructions or explanations for me.)

Thanks to everyone for your help!