High Impact Excel: VLOOKUP and Beyond

Excel expert David Ringstrom, CPA, explains helpful ways you can improve the integrity of your spreadsheets using Excel’s lookup functions. While many users rely on VLOOKUP to return data from other locations in a worksheet, that’s not always the most efficient approach. In this comprehensive presentation, David reveals alternatives to VLOOKUP, including the HLOOKUP, INDEX and MATCH, SUMIF, SUMIFS, SUMPRODUCT, XLOOKUP, and other functions.

David demonstrates every technique at least twice: first, on a PowerPoint slide with numbered steps, and second, in the subscription-based Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) version of Excel. David draws your attention to any differences in the older versions of Excel (2019, 2016, 2013, and earlier) during the presentation as well as in his detailed handouts. David also provides an Excel workbook that includes most of the examples he uses during the webcast.

Microsoft 365 is a subscription-based product that provides new feature updates as often as monthly. Conversely, the perpetual licensed versions of Excel have feature sets that don't change. Perpetual licensed versions have year numbers, such as Excel 2019, Excel 2016, and so on.

Webinar Objectives

• Apply a variety of lookup functions in order to work more efficiently in Excel.
• Recognize why the INDEX and MATCH combination is often superior to VLOOKUP or HLOOKUP.
• Apply the SUMIF and SUMIFS functions.

Webinar Agenda

• Contrasting the INDEX and MATCH combination to VLOOKUP or HLOOKUP.
• Discovering the capabilities of the SUMPRODUCT function for calculating payroll and other amounts.
• Displaying alternate results with XLOOKUP by populating the If_Not_Found argument instead of using IFERROR or IFNA.
• Employing the SUMIF function to sum values related to multiple instances of criteria you specify.
• Explaining the new XLOOKUP worksheet function being rolled out to Microsoft 365 (former Office 365) users.
• Investigating the risks associated with the obsolete LOOKUP function.
• Learning what types of user actions can trigger #REF! errors.
• Performing dual lookups, which allow you to look across columns and down rows to cross-reference the data you need.
• Understanding how the VLOOKUP function allows you to look up data instead of having to manually reference individual cells.
• Using the HLOOKUP function to look horizontally across rows in any version of Excel.
• Using the MATCH function to find the position of an item in a list.
• Using the SUMIFS function to sum values based on multiple criteria.

Who Should Attend

Practitioners who can benefit by using a variety of lookup functions to work more efficiently in Excel.