Vlookup can be used in a variety of areas and is therefore a very important function that is well worth getting to know. Its uses include:
- Joining/ merging databases and tables e.g. attach employee names to their salaries, address details etc
- Finding missing items (useful for reconciliations, finding employees with an email address but no other details etc)
- Comparing 2 columns (useful for reconciliations)
- Extract information from data to be used regularly in reports
- Let Excel guestimate an answer e.g. tax calculations
- Create categories for employee performance, grouping of sales, grouping employees into age brackets
- Age invoices, stock and debtors into bands- aging anything
- Sales commission bands
- Tax bands
Once you understand how VLOOKUP works, you will also understand better how Excel’s more complex functions work and you will find that the other ones are a little easier to learn.