[Paul D. Simon]

An Excel file that is now being sent to me each month contains a large
database table containing several columns. Reports I generate from
this file rely on Vlookup formulas. However, each month, the position
of several columns changes due to additions and/or deletions of
columns within the database from the previous month's file. So
copying in my formulas each month will result in wrong values.

For example, while this formula will work this month, it won't work
next month because the "92" will no longer be valid for the column I
need:

=VLOOKUP(DD5,$A$1:$CR$1000,92,FALSE)

The heading of the column I need to do the vlookup on in that formula
is "Avg MM Rate". So I had planned on using the following formula to
determine the column number of the column having that heading:

=MATCH("Avg MM Rate",B1:CR1,0)+COLUMN(B1:CR1)-1

and then substitute that formula for the "92" in the Vlookup formula,
resulting in:

=VLOOKUP(DD5,$A$1:$CR$1000, MATCH("Avg MM Rate",B1:CR1,0)+COLUMN
(B1:CR1)-1,FALSE)

However, that "MATCH" formula gave me 56 instead of 92. I checked
column 56 in the database and saw that it had the exact same column
heading as column 92. In fact, column 71 also has the same heading.
I discovered that several other column headings are duplicated or
triplicated in this database. (Obviously, this is a very badly
constructed database.)

The designer of this "database" is not willing to make any changes
since he has been sending this file out to several hundred people each
month and says they're used to that format. So short of manually
making dozens of corrections to my copy of the database each month, I
was wondering if there was some alteration to my formula that might
work.

Obviously, the MATCH formula is reading left to right in row 1 and
gives me the column number of the first match it finds. Is there a
way to get the 3rd occurrence of that heading? Or perhaps have the
formula read from right to left since it is the last occurrence of
that heading I want?

Many thanks.