Completing Simple V Look Ups in Google Sheets

– Rebekah Hedge

VLookup stands for Vertical Lookup

VLookup is a function that uses Excel to search a certain value in a column in order to return a value from a different column in the same row.

To begin, we are working with organized data

The goal of this function will be to pull all bills to one tab in our Excel sheet in order to find annual sums and averages.

Our bills are currently listed on different tabs as shown below:

To start the VLookup, you will type “=VLookup tab” this will open your “(“ for you to begin your formulation.

Once it is opened you will choose what data you are wanting to look up.

In this case we are going to choose the cell “A2” because we are wanting to find the “Electric Bill” to begin.

Next we are going to tell our sheet where to look for this information.

First, enter “,” to move to the next area of the function.
Then, click on the tab we are looking at first, which is “August” and then highlight the columns we want to sort through.

Next, add another “,” to move to the next function of the formula.

Now, select which column you want the information to be returned from.

In this case we are looking at the second column because we want the amount in column B to be returned into our spreadsheet.

Finally, choose if we want the formula to look for an exact match or a similar match when looking up our initial information.

In this case, we are going to choose an exact match.
To do this we will enter “,” to move to the next function and then “FALSE” to find the exact match.

Once this is complete, click “enter” on your keyboard to execute the formula.

You can now copy your formula and paste it through the column in order to complete your entire column without having to re-enter the entire formula:

In order to begin the September column, you will want to start again at the beginning of this guide.

If you try to copy and paste the initial column your formula will look at the incorrect data set and will return the same information as your first column. Below is the finished product:

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