HLookup Unexpected Value

[Eb0la11]

I am doing a simple Hlookup with dates at the top of my array. My lookup compares dates but looks at only the month and year then compares only the month and year of the dates at the top of my table. Then I am returning the 3rd row of my 3 row table.

Here is my formula:
=HLOOKUP(MONTH(F3)&YEAR(F3),MONTH('2017 JOB NUMBER LOG'!T1:AO3)&YEAR('2017 JOB NUMBER LOG'!T1:AO3),3,FALSE)

Does this need to be an array formula? Its giving me an error else wise.

Also it returns a number that isn't even anywhere in the array.

The exact cell I expect it to pull the value from is a cell that has a formula in it. When HLookup returns this cell is it by chance returning the formula or does it always return whatever is in the cell as a result? The number in the cell for example is $781,460 but it is returning 24406.

 

[Eric W]

Try:

=INDEX('2017 JOB NUMBER LOG'!T3:AO3,MATCH(MONTH(F3)&"|"&YEAR(F3),MONTH('2017 JOB NUMBER LOG'!T1:AO1)&"|"&YEAR('2017 JOB NUMBER LOG'!T1:AO1),0))

confirmed with Control+Shift+Enter.

 

[FDibbins]

1st, a formula will return what is displayed by the cell, not the underlying contents - ie, it will show the value in the cell, notthe formula in the cell.

2nd, What you need to understand about dates and times in excel is…

a date is just a number representing the number of days passed since 1/1/900...and then formatted in a way that we recognize as a date. So, for instance, today (Sun 24 Sep 2017) is actually 43002

Time is actually a decimal part of 1 (day), so 06:00 AM is 0.25, 12 noon is 0.5 and 18:00 (or 6 PM) is 0.75

Having said that, if all you want if the month/year, it might be simpler to us a helper row to pull just that "value", then base the hlookup on that helper row