VLOOKUP giving random and repeated values?!?

**ajasons** · 05-22-2012, 11:26 AM

Hello and Good Day,

I've used VLOOKUP for various jobs over the years, but am now stumped. I have a sheet that accumulates data from bank deposits (I work at a private school in Central America) that will then merge into receipts using Word. The VLOOKUP should search for the Deposit number (found in column C on the attached file) and then send the reciept no. value in column H to another sheet.

The problem is I don't get any N/A response... instead I just get a (seemingly) random answer from the correct column. In the attached sheet you'll notice my test (other sheets deleted). The K column has four values I did for practice (none are repeated in C column). And the shaded yellow cells in L column should give the correct LOOKUP. But it doesn't.....

Something interesting I've noticed is that if I do the LOOKUP based on what is in column A (the record number), the LOOKUP works fine. It seems like the problem is with column C values.. I checked for extra spaces or any odd value types and still can't figure anything out.

Thank you so much for your help

Regards,

Aaron Smith

**NBVC** · 05-22-2012, 11:29 AM

Add the 4th parameter to the VLOOKUP to get the Exact matches...

=VLOOKUP(C4,FR,6,FALSE)

**Cutter** · 05-22-2012, 11:30 AM

Add the 4th argument to the VLOOKUP()

=VLOOKUP(C4,FR,6,0) or =VLOOKUP(C4,FR,6,FALSE) to find exact match

**Cutter** · 05-22-2012, 11:31 AM

I broke my rule - don't go swimming when there are sharks in the water.

**Fotis1991** · 05-22-2012, 11:35 AM

@ Cutter

Luckily I had time ... I saw the shark fin .. ..

**ajasons** · 05-22-2012, 11:48 AM

Thanks.. I've always skipped that argument and never had a problem. I'm honestly not sure why it needed it now.. but the problem is fixed and that's what matters.