Round 2 begins! In this round, the goal is to understand what happens when values that are supposed to match are stored as different data types. Different data types? Cells can store many kinds of data, including numbers, text, dates, times, and so on. The format you apply to a cell doesn’t impact the data […]
The next Excel breakout puzzle is ready! And it’s a goodie 🙂 I realize fall doesn’t officially start for a few weeks, but, our kids start school next week and so it already feels like fall is upon us. Fall means back-to-school, cooler weather, falling leaves, and … american football. My son plays, and so […]
It is time! In the first post, we met VLOOKUP. In the second post, we met SUMIFS. And now, the battle begins! Here is how it will work. The competition will consist of several rounds. In each round, we will use VLOOKUP and then SUMIFS to perform the same task. Then, we’ll determine who wins […]
This is the second post in the Battle of Heavyweights series, where we are comparing VLOOKUP to SUMIFS in order to understand their key differences. Knowing these key differences will help us determine which to use in a given workbook. In the previous post, we were introduced to VLOOKUP. Now, it is time to meet […]
This is the first post in a series called Battle of Heavyweights. In the series, we’ll use a boxing metaphor to compare VLOOKUP and SUMIFS. Now, as you read the next paragraph, use your best announcer’s voice and be sure to imagine the roar of a cheering crowd 🙂 “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the […]
A few years ago, I wrote a post about how to perform fuzzy lookups using the “Fuzzy Lookup Add-In for Excel.” However, this capability is now available in Power Query!! Wait, what? Yes! Performing a fuzzy match is so much easier and far more intuitive in Power Query. This post walks through the basics … […]
Microsoft recently updated the built-in tools for retrieving stock quotes into Excel. If you’re typing closing prices into Excel manually, my recent California CPA Magazine article may be able to help you get it done faster. Specifically, it talks about how the Stock data type retrieves current quotes and related information, and how Power Query […]
In a previous post, we talked about how the CONCAT function joins values to create a combined text string. As a quick review, the CONCAT function is designed to replace the CONCATENATE function and supports range references as well as cell references. Well, as soon as we start playing around with CONCAT to join range […]
Quick question: how do we combine or join values from multiple cells to create one big text string? We’ve been able to use the concatenation operator (&) or the CONCATENATE function for decades. The CONCATENATE function has been a great friend over the years, and has enabled some wonderful formulas. But, now there’s a new […]
In the previous post, we learned that the SWITCH function allows us to look at a value and then return different results based on that value. But, what if instead of looking at one specific value, we need to consider multiple values in order to determine which result to return? Traditionally, we may have approached […]