Metadata and Workflows

Hi everyone,

I know there was a discussion just the other day in chat about this but I missed what the end result was.   I am attempting the following.

Approval workflow for an invoice, the task is assigned based on the department and amount, when its approved a list for that department is updated with the details of the invoice.   Everything is working great with the exception of the vendor field.   It’s a managed metadata term so the workflow can’t update the department list.   I’ve seen a few different workarounds for this on the web.   What do you think is the best way to update this vendor field?   I also need to display it in the task email.   I see some solutions using 3 fields and only showing one, some using a script, etc.  

Thanks for any advice on this!