How does one refer to the n-1 element of a named range?

If I have established a range called Beginning_Inventory, and I want to set
it equal to the previous period's Ending_Inventory, what do I have to do?
(Clearly, one could use a relative reference, but there are other reasons for
not doing so.)

Thanks,

Hi!

>How does one refer to the n-1 element of a named range?

What is the "n-1" element?

=INDEX(named_range,1,1)

Refers to the top leftmost element, that is, row1 column1.

Biff

"Charles Hewitt" <Charles [email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> If I have established a range called Beginning_Inventory, and I want to
> set
> it equal to the previous period's Ending_Inventory, what do I have to do?
> (Clearly, one could use a relative reference, but there are other reasons
> for
> not doing so.)
>
> Thanks,

"Charles Hewitt" <Charles [email protected]> wrote...
>If I have established a range called Beginning_Inventory, and I want to set
>it equal to the previous period's Ending_Inventory, what do I have to do?
>(Clearly, one could use a relative reference, but there are other reasons
>for
>not doing so.)

So each period has its own named range like Data2005Oct? If so, and if the
current range's period could be derived from, say, its row 1 column 2 cell,
and if the ending inventory were in the preceding period's row 20 column 7
cell, then you could try something like the following to pull the October
2005 ending inventory into the November 2005 range.

=INDEX(INDIRECT(TEXT(INDEX(Data2005Nov,1,2)-DAY(INDEX(Data2005Nov,1,2)),
"\D\a\t\aYYYYMMM")),20,7)