I work in a bank looking for an excel solution to a problem.
On day 1 I have two identical tables filed with identical data - so A2 (and B2 and C2 etc) in table 1 = A2 (and B2 and C2 etc) in table 2. Each table has 60 columns and ~100 rows.
Each of the rows represents a different company, best identified by a Client ID (a unique number that never changes) that appears in one of the middle columns. All other company information within a row can change however.
Table 1 will be the most recent data (refreshed every day) and table 2 will be the hard coat version, copy and pasted from Table 1 using the previous day's data.
I have a third table that compares the specific cells within each of the rows within each of the tables and uses an IF function along the lines of:
If A2 in table 1 = A2 in table 2, then "OK" otherwise "Not Okay"; if A3 in table 1 = A3 in table 2, then "OK" otherwise "Not Okay" etc.
On day 1, when the tables and data are identical, the same rows and cells of the same company are being compared.
The problem is the live data in table 1 will include new rows of new companies that can insert themselves anywhere, which means that the company found in row A in table 1 may no longer be the same company found in row A in table 2.
And I can’t just sort both tables’ data by Client ID as a simple solution as table 2 will have rows / companies that no longer appear in the live data in table 1.
I've tried to work out which function I should use to match the rows of the two tables using the Client ID - maybe Index Match - but can't get it to work.
In basic English the solution should be:
In table 1, use the client ID in row A (or B or C or D etc) and return the row in which the same client ID appears in table 2.
Once the correct rows have been matched, then compare A2 to A2, A3 to A3 etc using the IF function mentioned above.
I could potentially move the Client ID all the way to the left in order to use a VLOOKUP but not sure this function will work.
Please help.
Solved by M. H. in 30 mins