How can i keep from repeating a name in an excel cell?

[bobbijo81]

I work for a non-profit org and we are trying a new way of keeping up with
monies distributed. I just have basic knowledge of the excel program and i
only have one question that may sound silly but is very important to us. We
are listing the clients name in cell A and then the amount of money they
recieve and to whom (the utility company) in the rows b-f. Every evening i
add the clients names to the spreadsheet and sort them in alphabetical order.
What i need to know is there anyway to flag a name if it has been listed
twice? For example, last year we did this same method and didn't sort them
alphabetically. When it was time to send the reports to FEMA, there was one
person who double-dipped and received benefits twice. SO, we are trying to
prevent this from happening again. Is there some way of customizing options
or anything to detect if the name has been typed before? Maybe like how the
Word program offers the shortcut drop-down box when something has been typed
before. Sorry for being confusing but i don't really know how to ask this in
any other manner. Thank you so much if you can possibly help me.

 

[Gary''s Student]

Locating, removing, and preventing duplicates are covered in:

http://www.cpearson.com/excel/topic.aspx

 

[Barbara Wiseman]

One way is to use conditional formating in the column, then when you type in
a duplicate the cell will be coloured.

Highlight the column, eg column A
Format, conditional formatting
format is put in
=countif(A:A,A1)>1
Click on the format button, then use the pattern to choose a cell shading
colour.

Hope this helps,
Barbara