Resources, outside services, how??

shank

NAV 2009R2

Right now for all of our outside services, such as shops that take our metal and paint them, we setup a resource. When we purchase misc things, such as office supplies, they go under a resource. We don't want to create an item number for each and every type of office piece we buy, so we put them in grouped resources.

The issue is that there is no history here. So when we want to see the last vendor that painted a metal piece, resources are very limited. Resources don't even have preferred vendors.

How do you guys handle these scenarious?