Can I create a multiple LOOKUP formula with 'then' function???

[Matthew Cardiff]

Hello there - I hope you can help. I am fast losing my hair on this one!

I have a data sheet in Excel 2000 that I cannot alter or sort. As per my
example below it contains numerous rows that contain a list of customers.
Under each customer it contains product by product data that is then sorted
by column into monthly sales and then totals. My problem is that I need a
LOOKUP formula that is able to say "Lookup row with Customer A, THEN LOOKUP
the next row that contains 'product B', THEN find the column in that row that
gives TOTAL".

Ambitous maybe. I have bought 3 Excel books that do not give the solution so
I hope it is something that comes with experience not books! Each customer
has the same list of products so I am struggling to locate a multiple formula
that finds the NEXT "product A" after a particular customer.

Example data

AXIS / col a / col b / colc / col d / col z

row 1 / customer a / blank / blank / blank / col z
row 2 / product a / blank / blank / blank / col z
row 3 / blank / blank / blank / blank / col z
row 4 / blank / blank / jan / feb / col z
row 5 / blank / sales / 100 / 200 / TOTAL

row 23 / customer g / blank / blank / blank / col z
row 24 / product a / blank / blank / blank / col z
row 25 / blank / blank / blank / blank / col z
row 26 / blank / blank / jan / feb / col z
row 27 / blank / sales / 200 / 300 / TOTAL

Summary: Is there a formula I can use that ignores the empty cells and can
locate on a data sheet a particular customer name in column A, then the next
particular product also in column A, then a particular attribute (sales or
revenue) which is in column B, then return from that row the value in column
Z (TOTAL).

Thank you in advance for your help on this problem. I have seen how much
advice has been given on the other topics and think this community is
fantastic.

 

[John Bundy]

Just to make sure we have a few things straight:
Are you feeding in 2 criteria and returning 2? such as Customer Name,
product name and returning Sales/revenue and Total
Is the data always in 5 row increments?
Is customer name always in the first, product always in the second, and
total always in the 5th?
Can there be multiple occasions where a customer bought the same product?

That should help us answer much quicker and more accurately.

 

[vezerid]

I have not fully understood the structure of your data but you will
most certainly need OFFSET. The expression:

=INDEX(A:A,MATCH(custA,A:A,0))

will locate the cell that contains custA in column A:A. From there you
can use OFFSET. For example, a customer's total is 4 rows further down
and 4 columns further to the right. Thus, to retrieve the total of
custA:

=OFFSET(INDEX(A:A,MATCH(custA,A:A,0)),4,4)

Does this help?
Kostis Vezerides

 

[Matthew Cardiff]

Hi John - Thanks for the assitance.

I am feeding in 2 criteria to return 1 such as Customer name and product to
return Total.

The main issue is that the data is at various and ever changing intervals
because some customers only order 1 product and others order 7 or 8. The
customer name is always in the first row of that set but which product and
how many products vary, therefore it is impossible to calculate which cell
the total will be in. There is no option to use OFFSET as the data is updated
weekly and row positions may change.

It is likely that there are multiple occasions where a customer bought the
same product. Most likey 90% of customers bought product A then 50% of them
will have bought A and B and 25% of them will have bought A,B&C so they will
all have identical row titles with the product names under each customer
title.

Hope this helps.

 

[Matthew Cardiff]

Thank you for your assistance Vezerid. That solution does not help with this
particular problem but will certainly come in useful with a different dilema!

My data is not set in structure. The number of rows containing data
underneath each customer is direclty linked to how many products they buy.
Some customer who only order 1 product will have a 5 row inclusion, whereas a
customer ordering 6 products will have over 30 rows. The data is updated
weekly and the structure can change by any customer ordering or not ordering
a particular product. I need a formula that is dynamic and can 'search' for
the product name following a given customer name.

 

[John Bundy]

You would need programming then. Follow me a little here so i can get a
little more info. If you give me a customer and a product, the output is the
total for the entire purchase? Such as customer 1 bought A, B, C and you want
to know the total of the entire order where customer =1 and say product =B?
If this is the case, is there something that says "Total" or another way to
tell where the total is?
With the answers to these we could probably whip something up

 

[Matthew Cardiff]

Yes spot on John. There are multiple uses but predominantly I would want to
input a customer name and a product name and the return would be the total
sales for the year for that particular product bought by that customer so far
that year. (The TOTAL sales of that product is always in column 'O' it is
determining which row to search that is hardest).

The 'TOTAL' column is titled 'TOTAL' in Column 'O' which is after many
columns with Jan-Dec headings in the same row. Also the 'TOTAL' heading
covers 4 different variables. Under 'TOTAL' you have the figures for Total
Volume, Litres, Price and Turnover.

I would want to enter 'Customer a' & 'product b' & 'total volume' and it
return me the figure for just that.

The headings for each row: Volume, Litres, Price and Turnover are in column B

It is a shame I can't capture a screen and paste it on this post!!

Does that make it any clearer?

 

[John Bundy]

No promises but you can shoot the workbook to me at
(e-mail address removed)/removethis. The only part i think i am confused on is what
the total represents. You say you want the total of each product, is the
total in O for that product only? Might make more sense looking at the data.

 

[Matthew Cardiff]

Workbook sent. Thanks John. The 'Total' column in 'O' represents everything.
Thatis the column where the total figure, row, by row is given for Sales
(Volume), Sales (Cases) then Sales Revenue, then Sales (Y-1) - So I really
need to pick them out one by one. The main aim to is draw this data out an
compile it into a presentable format so I can have e.g - Total sales for
product A, Total Sales for product B then TOTAL SALES - the raw data gives so
much more data and does not compile the particular lines I need.