How to Lookup Values to Left?

Share

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
This article is part of our VLOOKUP Week. Read more.

Situation

There is no argument that VLOOKUP is a beautiful & useful formula. But it suffers from one nagging limitation. It cannot go left.

Let me explain, Imagine you have data like below. Now, if you want to find-out who made $2,133 in sales, there is no way VLOOKUP can come to rescue. This is because, once you search a list using VLOOKUP, you can only return corresponding items from the column at right, not at left.

Data:

Data for this Example -Make VLOOKUP go Left

One easy fix would be move the sales data to the left of person name. But this is an annoying fix, because, god knows you may want to lookup based on profit values or something else in future. A better alternative is,…

Solution

.., to use a formula combination called INDEX + MATCH (or OFFSET + MATCH would work too).

The basic syntax of this combination is like this: =INDEX(column with data you want,MATCH(value you are looking for, column which contains this data,0)). So, for eg: =INDEX($B$5:$B$17,MATCH(1088,$D$5:$D$17,0)) would find the position of 1088 in list D5:D17 and return corresponding element from B5:B17 (ie the value from left). See more examples below.

Examples:

Data for this Example -Make VLOOKUP go Left

Sample File

Download Example File – Make VLOOKUP go Left

Go ahead and download the file. It also has some homework for you to practice this formula trick.

Special Thanks to

Prem, Rohit1409, John, Godzilla, Chris Byham, judgepax – Please click on their names to learn even more.

Similar Tips

VLOOKUP Week @ Chandoo.org - Learn tips on lookup formulas in Excel

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn

Share this tip with your colleagues

Excel and Power BI tips - Chandoo.org Newsletter

Get FREE Excel + Power BI Tips

Simple, fun and useful emails, once per week.

Learn & be awesome.

Welcome to Chandoo.org

Thank you so much for visiting. My aim is to make you awesome in Excel & Power BI. I do this by sharing videos, tips, examples and downloads on this website. There are more than 1,000 pages with all things Excel, Power BI, Dashboards & VBA here. Go ahead and spend few minutes to be AWESOME.

Read my storyFREE Excel tips book

Overall I learned a lot and I thought you did a great job of explaining how to do things. This will definitely elevate my reporting in the future.
Rebekah S
Reporting Analyst
Excel formula list - 100+ examples and howto guide for you

From simple to complex, there is a formula for every occasion. Check out the list now.

Calendars, invoices, trackers and much more. All free, fun and fantastic.

Advanced Pivot Table tricks

Power Query, Data model, DAX, Filters, Slicers, Conditional formats and beautiful charts. It's all here.

Still on fence about Power BI? In this getting started guide, learn what is Power BI, how to get it and how to create your first report from scratch.

One Response to “Loan Amortization Schedule in Excel – FREE Template”

  1. Ag says:

    The balance formula as given doesnt seem to work on my excel

Leave a Reply