Workaround for Optional field 60 character limit

SUGGESTED

Dear Experts, I wanted to check what is the best workaround for overcoming the 60 Character limitation for Optional fields? is there a way we can alter directly the table and add a field to load the full length description of the Item and using some trigger/procedure to copy this through backend to the Optional field created from Sage (definitely after changing the field length limit of this field in SQL). 

Its my quick thought... but did not worked on it... since there are many experts here... you may have some better idea ... Please help. 

Thanks

Deepu Nair