how do I match data from two separate files in excel

I am trying to analyse financial data for two different periods. Period one
will have say, 10 people with a value. Period 2 will have say 14 people with
a value.
However some people in period 1 will have no value in period 2 and also some
people in period 2 were new in period 1 and so did not exist in period 1.

If I have two separate files for each period (i.e. period 1 has people and a
value and similarly for period 2), how can I create a list with column 1
being for all people form both periods and showing their values for periods 1
and 2 in columns 2 and 3 therefore enabling me to anylyse any trends

There are a number of methods depending on how often you want to do this, how much data, what you are going to do with the results.

Options include:
1. (neat and good for large volumes of data)
set up the spreadsheets as linked tables in access and then use a query to join the information together

2. like 1 but only for the technical do the same as 1 but useing ado in macro to populate another sheet (or workbook)

3. Simply
make a list of all the employees on a new sheet. use vlookup (this site has plenty of info on how to use vlookup) to pull in data for the other columns.

4. moderately complex (but all excel)
a macro to merge the two sets of data

Let us know what you think and maybe you will get more detailed help

regards