Vlookup Only The First Lookup Value

[anconavince]

Hello,
I think I have a fairly simple problem (but one I can't fix). Column A of sheet "Model" has hundreds of thousands of account numbers, many of which are duplicates. I need to vlookup based on those account numbers to return data from Column B of sheet "Cost", but I only want to return data for the first occurrence of each account number in sheet "Model".
I've tried a nested IF formula but can't quite get it to work. Thank you in advance for any help.

 

[Fluff]

Hi & welcome to MrExcel.
How about something like
=IF(COUNTIF(A$2:A2,A2)=1,your Vlookup formula,"")

 

[anconavince]

Hi Fluff, thank you. I now realize I should come up with a better username haha.

So this formula works to pull my vlookup, but it doesn't quite eliminate the issue I'm having. My goal is to only return column B of sheet "Cost" for the first of multiple account numbers in column A of "Model" so that I can pivot without duplicate cost data. Does that make sense?

 

[Fluff]

That formula will only run the vlookup the first time an account appears, all subsequent times the formula will return ""