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seriousdamage

Board Regular
Joined
Aug 14, 2005
Messages
58
Hi All,
I have an excel file with about 30.000 company names, which I have sorted in alphabetical order. My goal is to find a relationship between this accounts only by looking at the name and see if they NEARLY match, so that I can consider them as 1 company and reduce the list.

Is there a formula that I can run to help me out?

I give you an example of what I would consider the same company.

UNION SDA FINANCE,
UNION DES SUCRERIES ET DISTILLERIES SDA FINANCE AGRICOLES,
RECTORAT DES SDA FINANCE SUCRERIES ET DISTILLERIES.

As you can see in all 3 records there is the word SDA FINANCE always present, which brings me to think that they could all be connected.
If then they are not that will be a different issue :)

Any help?
Thanks
NIC.
 

Excel Facts

Formula for Yesterday
Name Manager, New Name. Yesterday =TODAY()-1. OK. Then, use =YESTERDAY in any cell. Tomorrow could be =TODAY()+1.
Hi,

Try:

=MIN(MATCH("*"&MID(A2,ROW(INDIRECT("1:"&LEN(A2)-10)),10)&"*",$A$2:$A$10,0))

Confirmed with Ctrl + shift + enter in B2 and dragged down.

This formula takes each 10 letter string (can be changed) out and returns a number indicating the first match within the list.

Sorting or filtering by these numbers might give you what you want.

Ofcorse there is a great chance that you will get matches that are not valid in reality.
Book1
ABCD
1
2UNION SDA FINANCE,1
3xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx2
4yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy3
5Some other company4
6UNION DES SUCRERIES ET DISTILLERIES SDA FINANCE AGRICOLES,1
7Some other company4
8Yet another7
9UNION DES SUCRERIES ET DISTILLERIES SDA FINANCE AGRICOLES,1
10Yet another7
Sheet4
 
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