Finding Text

[thestones757]

So I have a log at work for orders from people in the office that is the format:

"Person Who Placed Order"-"Person Ordered For"

The account number in the next cell is represented only for the "Person Ordered For" and should correspond to their name. Since there are a large number of orders, it would be easiest to enter in a formula to represent the account number automatically if a specific person is entered in the "Person Ordered For" portion of the cell to then display their account number so I wouldn't have to enter in the account number every time. I have tried a string of IF statements but now it is returning "too many arguments for function", also I have tried finding the text with a SEARCH function, but that seems to display a number when I need to incorporate it into an IF function to represent a textual account number.

If there is an easier way to do this I would greatly appreciate it!

 

[texasalynn]

could you post a sample of what you asking? I'm not understanding about the account number part

 

[thestones757]

Yes,

A B
NAME ACCOUNT
Joe Schmoe-Jerry Lewis =IF(SEARCH("Jerry Lewis",A1),"FY51214",...)
^Orderer(Usually same)-^Person Ordered For

The person ordered can be a number of different of people corresponding to a number of different account numbers, so therefore it would be easy to find the shortest way of stringing together a bunch of if statements to represent their account numbers.

 

[texasalynn]

you are limited to 7 ifs in nesting. So a lookup would probably a better options. For that you will need to setup a table with the names and account numbers.