You are the boss of ACME Inc. And one day, both of your accountants Sara and James come to you with two versions of the customer payment data. How do you compare these two Excel sheets and reconcile the data? We can use VLOOKUP to do just that. In this article, let me explain the step-by-step process.
Step 1: Set up data in two Excel sheets
Copy both sets of data to two sheets in an Excel file. For example, here I have two sheets – one with Sara’s data and another with James’ data. Both datasets have identical columns, but the data is not same.
Step 2: Start with the first sheet and write the VLOOKUP formula
Go to the first sheet. Here, we are going to use VLOOKUP (or XLOOKUP, if you have Excel 365) to get the matching value from second sheet.
For the purpose of this exercise, you need a unique identifier column like Customer ID or invoice number.
In the adjacent column we are going to write the VLOOKUP function to get the corresponding values for the customer ID’s from second sheet. The set up should look like this:
Step 3: The LOOKUP formula
Write the VLOOKUP formula like this:
=VLOOKUP(B3,'James Sheet'!$B$3:$C$32,2,FALSE)VLOOKUP Formula Explanation:
- VLOOKUP formula finds matching value from a range. For example, here we can use it to search for the customer ID and get their payment details.
- B3: refers to the cell with customer ID
- ‘James Sheet’!$B$3:$C$32: is the range of data in second Excel sheet which we are trying to match
- 2: is the column number of the “Amount paid” column in second sheet.
- FALSE: ensures that VLOOKUP will look for an exact match in the second sheet.
- Learn more about VLOOKUP function.
Or if you prefer to use XLOOKUP formula, use this:
=XLOOKUP(B3,'James Sheet'!$B$3:$B$32,'James Sheet'!$C$3:$C$32, "ID missing")
Fill this formula down so you can see the matching values from second sheet.
At the end of this step, your first sheet should look like this:
If you have any missing IDs, those cells should have #N/A.
Step 4: Reconcile the values
Now that you have the matching value from second Excel sheet, let’s reconcile both to see which values matched and which values are different.
For this, we can use IF formula. Here is the formula:
=IF(ISERROR(D3),"ID Missing", IF(D3<>C3,"Not matching", "Matching"))
This formula compares the first sheet value with the second sheet value and tells us if they are same or different. It also checks for the #N/A error and flags those records as “Missing ID”.
Fill the formula down and you will have reconciliation information for your data.
Now you can use FILTERS in Excel to see all matching or not matching records easily.
Step 5: Conditional format the non-matching records
This optional step helps us quickly spot all the non-matching and missing ID values quickly.
To do this,
- Select the entire range of data (for example: B3:E32)
- Go to Home ribbon > Conditional Formatting and click on “new rule”
- Select the rule type as “Use a formula to determine the…”
- Type the rule as =$E3 = “Not matching” (refer to the below image)
- Set the formatting to highlight the non-matching records
- Click OK to add the rule.
- Add one more rule for “ID missing” highlight and repeat steps 3 to 6
When you finish, your data will highlight all the non-matching and missing ID values in different color so you can easily identify them.
Related: Learn more about Excel conditional formatting feature.
FREE Comparison & Reconciliation Template
If you need a quick template to compare two Excel sheets and reconcile the data, download my sample file here.
Other techniques to reconcile and compare two Excel sheets:
While using VLOOKUP is a quick and elegant way to compare two spreadsheets, Excel also offers few more options. These are:
- Power Query: We can use Power Query to compare two sheets or two workbooks of data and reconcile the differences between values. Power Query also makes it easy to compare when you have multiple ID columns (for example: Customer ID & Date as the criteria for comparison). Refer to my Power Query tutorial page for more information on how to combine data with it.
- Using XLOOKUP instead of VLOOKUP: As demoed above, we can use the new XLOOKUP function in Excel to perform the comparison. This allows for built-in error handling so we can see “Missing IDs” easily. Read more about XLOOKUP function here.
- Using Conditional formatting: Excel’s conditional formatting also offers a powerful and simple way to compare two lists of values. See this page for details.
- Using formulas vs. Power Query: I discuss the approaches for comparing two Excel sheets with formulas and PQ in my YouTube video here.
- Using Pivot Tables: Excel Pivot tables can link two tables of data on a key column (like customer ID) so you can easily compare values from both in one view. This feature is called relationships. Learn more about Table Relationships in Excel here.
In conclusion…
Comparing two Excel sheets is an easy task once you know how to use the VLOOKUP (or XLOOKUP) function in Excel. I have used this exact approach countless times when dealing with multiple versions of files or different versions of truth. The process is easy, and the results are actionable.
30 Responses to “Rescue oddly shaped data – Battle between Formulas, VBA and Power Query”
Nice use of Power Query! Power Query is simply awesome! But somehow a lot of people are punishing themselves by not using it (not learning it).
An imperfect 4th approach for consideration... no codes at all...
Select myrange.
Go to Special --> Blank
Delete Cell --> Shift cell left
90% done... now we just need to move the data of 2nd column to the bottom of 1st column
Of course... Power Query is the best.
Cheers,
There is another way but it involves multiple steps:
Copy the values in column E, move the cursor to F5, Paste Special with Skip Blanks, OK
Copy the values in column D, move the cursor to F8, Paste Special with Skip Blanks, OK
And so on.
This works perfectly, albeit a little clumsily apart from the values in B17 and C16, which can be moved with simple copy and paste
Power Query Forever! I do not know how I survived for so long without knowing and using this tool, I can not recommend it to my colleagues, but by the way they prefer to suffer to learn.
My congratulations here from Brazil.
I rolled my eyes when I saw that data
Using decimal places is a nice trick to order data, thanks for that
And tweaking the first formula a bit, you can use OFFSET instead of INDIRECT
=OFFSET($A$1, MIN(IF(myrange, ROW(myrange)), ROWS(A$1:A1))-1, RIGHT(TEXT(MIN(IF(myrange, ROW(myrange) + COLUMN(myrange)*0.00001), ROWS(A$1:A1)), ".00000"), 5)-1)
Tried the above formula with the downloaded oddly shaped data file and I could not get it to work. I get #value without ctrl+shift+enter, and #ref with ctrl+shift+enter.
Sorry, it was SMALL, not MIN.
Add with CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER.
Thank you for your formula. Like the indirect formula I tested this one in older versions of EXCEL and it worked without ALTERATION in EXCEL 95. Very impressive.
Too complicated
Use =Sum to summarize all the sells to the left and Bobs Your Uncle
@Bertie... I am afraid that won't work when you have more than one value in a row.
I tested this formula in versions of Excel all the way back to Excel 95
=IF(ISERROR(INDIRECT("R"&SUBSTITUTE(TEXT(SMALL(IF(MyRange"",ROW(MyRange)+COLUMN(MyRange)*0.00001),ROWS(A$1:A9)),"00000.00000"),".","C"),FALSE)),"",(INDIRECT("R"&SUBSTITUTE(TEXT(SMALL(IF(MyRange"",ROW(MyRange)+COLUMN(MyRange)*0.00001),ROWS(A$1:A9)),"00000.00000"),".","C"),FALSE)))
So there are multiple ways of cleaning up messy data by formulas.
Wow.. Excel 95. Who knew people still use that. But as you have shown, Excel has all these beautiful and powerful functions for 23 years. It has data sciency stuff before DS was even a thing.
I had a problem with pasting the formula in the original post.
Formula should be: =IF(ISERROR(INDIRECT("R"&SUBSTITUTE(TEXT(SMALL(IF(myrange"",ROW(myrange)+COLUMN(myrange)*0.00001),ROWS(A$1:A1)),"00000.00000"),".","C"),FALSE)),"",(INDIRECT("R"&SUBSTITUTE(TEXT(SMALL(IF(myrange"",ROW(myrange)+COLUMN(myrange)*0.00001),ROWS(A$1:A1)),"00000.00000"),".","C"),FALSE)))
EXCEL even in a 16 bit version, is a very robust and capable program.
I don't like the VBA code. If you have a blank row in MyRange, the last entry in the range is doubled up in the paste.here range.
Not really. The macro is writing one cell at a time from paste.here. You have to clean the range before, which I was too lazy to write. But a line like Range(range("paste.here"), range("paste.here").end(xldown)).clearcontents should do the trick.
Adding Range(range("paste.here"), range("paste.here").end(xldown)).clearcontents fixed the problem.
for step split column by delimiter i am not getting option of split into rows or columns. Can you help me in this
Thanks Chandoo for promoting Power Query.
To simplify further, you can "Unpivot Columns" instead of right click on the newly created column and split it by comma in to rows in step 3 of Power Query.
i used
=LOOKUP(10000,B5:F5)
and got the answers. I just plagiarized this formula somewhere and use it, maybe you can explain why it works.
Regards
@Johan... I am not sure if the formula works correctly. When I tested it with the sample data in this post, it showed #N/As in two cells. Essentially, it will only give first value in each row. So if a row has multiple values, then subsequent values are missed. LOOKUP() function goes thru a list and finds the first value that is less than or equal to the input - in this case 10000 in B5:F5.
I have the need to convert pdf's to excel on occasion and they often come out a mess like this. I have used:
Cell G2 =COUNT(myrange)
Cell G3 =IFERROR(IF(G2-1<1,"",G2-1),"") copied down to G100
Cell H2 =IFERROR(LARGE(myrange,G2),"") copied down to H100
Waouw...
=IFERROR(INDIRECT("R" & SUBSTITUTE(TEXT(SMALL(IF(myrange "", ROW(myrange) + COLUMN(myrange)*0.00001),
ROWS(A$1:A1)), "00000.00000"), ".", "C"), FALSE), "")
but CTRL Shift Enter with {} before and after 🙂 😀
Here's a way with pivot table
https://www.bookkempt.com/2018/02/aligning-non-contiguous-data.html
This is brilliant. Bookmarked 🙂
Another possibility.
This assumes that you have a row index 'k' to use in the SMALL function and a column index 'h' to identify the columns of 'myRange'.
If you define 'coord' to refer to
=k+h/10 [assuming h<10]
then it will be possible to recover values later based upon location within 'myRange'. The formula 'nb' that identifies non-blanks by coordinates is given by
= SMALL( IF(myRange"", coord), k )
Finally, to unpick the pieces
= INDEX( myRange, INT(nb), 10*MOD(nb, 1) )
Whilst I am here and making trouble the PQ solution is also a tad over-complicated. All that is needed is to unpivot the entire table and remove the Attribute column.
The advanced editor would show
let
Source = Excel.CurrentWorkbook(){[Name="myRange"]}[Content],
#"Unpivoted Columns" = Table.UnpivotOtherColumns(Source, {}, "Attribute", "Value"),
#"Removed Columns" = Table.RemoveColumns(#"Unpivoted Columns",{"Attribute"})
in
#"Removed Columns"
1.fill the blank cells with 0
2.the requested column value=sum of those mess number column
but this can be used in only one column has value
Chandoo
And if we use the formula SEARCH (100000000, B5: F5)
JC
Another approach with Power Query, it will still work if the number of columns changed:
let
Source = Excel.CurrentWorkbook(){[Name="myrange"]}[Content],
#"Added Custom" = Table.AddColumn(Source, "List", each Record.ToList(_)),
#"Removed Other Columns" = Table.SelectColumns(#"Added Custom",{"List"}),
#"Expanded LIst" = Table.ExpandListColumn(#"Removed Other Columns", "List"),
#"Filtered Rows" = Table.SelectRows(#"Expanded LIst", each ([List] null))
in
#"Filtered Rows"
Cool idea to use Record.ToList as added column. Thanks for sharing this.
Nowadays, you can just use TOCOL on Excel 2024, MS 365, and Web Excel. It has a parameter to ignore blanks/errors/both.