Like the word implies, the MATCH function compares one variable against a list of variables to see if they are equal. When it finds a match, the function returns the row number of the matching variable.
I use it most at work while doing bank reconciliations.
In the following example, I am checking to see if an outstanding cheque is in the list of cashed cheques. That is to see if each value in column B is in column A. The values to enter in the formula are =MATCH(B2,A:A,0). This means, check the value in cell B2 against the list in column A; the zero in the end means exact match. (more…)