Wildcard Vlookup

I am attempting to do a wildcard lookup.

I have a list of invoice numbers that I need to check against a string and my thought is that a wildcard lookup may be the best way to handle this task. The problem is that there are differences between a manual look up, say a ctrl+F and the formula. I.E I can find the search string with the manual look up, but the formula result is "False"

I am trying to look up the invoice number in column A, against a named range, "PAID_RAN", and returning the second column, which is a pay date.

Here are the formulas that I am trying.

Please Login or Register  to view this content.

or

Please Login or Register  to view this content.

I am open to suggestions and definitely corrections on how to improve my.

I recommend uploading a small representative sample of your data along with the desired results (which you can enter manually) based on that data.

To upload an Excel workbook, follow these steps:
1) Click on "Go Advanced"
2) Click on "Manage Attachments"
3) Click on "Choose File"
4) Choose your file and click on "Open"
5) Click on "Upload"
6) Click on "Close this window"

Are the values in col A & PAID_RAN either both text, or both numeric?

Here is an attached sample

And Im almost sure that they the look up value can be either string or numerical, and the look up string (that in which I am looking up against) is string.
Because the look up string starts with a " " (blank space)

Also, thank you for teaching me how to upload a file, I was clicking on the paperclip in the message editor.

You didn't include the desired results.

Both formulas are working as I would expect them to.
#N/A will be the result when the value in column A of the RESEARCH worksheet is not found in column A of the DETAIL worksheet.

You'll have to change the formatting of column G to date to get dates to show instead of numbers.
Also, you can use IFERROR to hide the errors if you wanted to do that.

Sorry,

The desired results are in column E "Manual Lookup"
And I'm not sure the formulas are working as expected. I do get #N/A, but thats not the issue. The issue is that for some values I can find with the manual look up (ctrl+f) but the formula returns a false or #N/A

An example of this is row 58, invoice 86167. I found the value with the manual look up, but the formula returned false, and #n/a. The pay date in column was manually entered by me.

Am I missing something?

I cannot find 86167 on the Detail sheet

Where in the DETAIL worksheet is 86167?

AHHHH, you know what?!

I was looking these invoices up in my MS Access database (which is where the export came from) but the pay dates in access go past the time frame in the "DETAIL" tab.
Once I take that into account, the formuals do appear to be working.

I should be more careful before questioning an expert, my apologies

Thank you for your help!!

Glad you got it sorted. Thanks for the rep!