Formula to find duplicate entries based on certain specific conditions

Hi all,

I'm using Excel 2010. I am creating a central list of transactions by appending data to it from different worksheets. My problem is that certain transactions (rows of data) are duplicates located in the source worksheets. Once the whole exercise is completed, I will then need to remove those duplicate entries. Since this removal will be a tedious task, I want to automate a few of the steps involved.

I an thinking of sorting the final list by "Name" and "Date of Arrival" (which are 2 variables in the list). Now, I want to insert a new column where I will run a formula that will check the columns of "Name" and "Date of Arrival" and ouput something like "DUP" if it find the cells just after it as having the same "Name" and "Date of Arrival".

To make it clearer, let's put it this way: Column D is the newly created Column that will run the formula. Let's say Column B and C are Columns "Names" and "Date of Arrival" respectively. So, Cell D1 will output "DUP" only if cells B1 AND C1 are SAME as Cells B2 and C2. In other words, the conditions that need to be met are that B1 and C1 values must be same as B2 and C2 values for that row to be considered as a Duplicate.

What is the formula to use to achieve this?

Put the formula in D2:

Formula:

Please Login or Register  to view this content.

then copy down.

Hope this helps.

Pete

Thanks guys! Works nice!