How can I find the last instance of each unique item (in column), display only those columns?

[fitzchivalry]

I have a spreadsheet as follows:

Date	Customer	Order Detail	Order ID
01/01/2015	John	Eggs	1
02/01/2015	Simon	Beans	2
03/01/2015	Anna	Toast	3
04/01/2015	Sinead	Toast	4
05/01/2015	Andrew	Toast	5
06/01/2015	Caroline	Eggs	6
07/01/2015	Bill	Sausages	7
08/01/2015	Leanne	Mushrooms	8
09/01/2015	Mike	Toast	9
10/01/2015	Sarah	Tea	10
01/02/2015	Nicholas	Sausages	11
02/02/2015	John	Bacon	12
03/02/2015	Mike	Sausages	13
04/02/2015	Sinead	Eggs	14
05/02/2015	Leanne	Sausages	15
06/02/2015	Bill	Eggs	16
07/02/2015	Simon	Toast	17
08/02/2015	John	Eggs	18
09/02/2015	Anna	Sausages	19
10/02/2015	Anna	Toast	20
01/03/2015	Mike	Sausages	21
02/03/2015	Sinead	Sausages	22
03/03/2015	Peter	Eggs	23
04/03/2015	Gabi		24
05/03/2015	Mohammed	Sausages	25
06/03/2015	Karen	Toast	26
07/03/2015	John	Mushrooms	27
08/03/2015	Leanne	Mushrooms	28
09/03/2015	Peter	Eggs	29

<tbody>
</tbody>

Didn't really need that 3rd column. Anyway.

I have a spreadsheet like this and would like to somehow pull just the last mention of each Customer, so I can see when they last ordered, and display these in another table, which could be called most recent order.

Would it require scripting or can this be done with VLOOKUP or something? I'm going to carry on looking for a solution, but this isn't my area of expertise.

I'm continuing to try and figure this out myself, but am a bit stuck so hoping to be pointed in the right direction.

Am currently looking up how to find unique values, thinking that might be the first step.

 

[Weazel]

assuming you have a list of unique customers already than

=LOOKUP(2,1/($B$2:$B$30=F2),$A$2:$A$30)

where column B are the customers and column A are the dates.

F2 would hold the first unique customers name.

 

[fitzchivalry]

Thank you, sorry for my ridiculously late response.

I read your reply not long after you posted it, and tried to get the same to work in OpenOffice, to no avail. I just get =DIV/0.

I didn't mention I'm using OpenOffice before because for my reasoning, that's my problem and this is an Excel forum not OpenOffice forum.

=INDEX(A1:A100,MATCH(A1,D1:D100,0))

Along with some instructions to goto the sheet in question and make sure each row has a corresponding number, then sort descending, come back to the sheet I'm using that formula on and sort the results descending. And then press Ctrl+Z until the sheet containing the data is back in the correct order.

Suggestions welcome, I've given up trying to make this better on my own (I've tried stuff involving IFERROR, MAX, IF, INDEX, LOOKUP, today, and this is the closest I've gotten. I remember doing something else weeks ago that worked better than my current solution, but I can't remember what it was and I still had to reverse the order of the cells manually!).