Can I use custom fields in Activecampaign instead of adding tags to a contact

i.e. subscriber buys or refunds my digital course -> that external platform adds them to my list and tags them appropriately -> my automation runs to update their “course status” custom field based on the tag and then deletes the tag. It seems like this is simpler than adding/removing multiple tags for status info and cluttering up the tags each contact has. But maybe I’m missing something. Does anyone do this? Or not do this? Thoughts on pros and cons of this approach?