It's to allow the formula to be dragged across and have VLOOKUP return
values from successive columns. For instance, if the formula was copied
one cell to the right, it would read

=VLOOKUP($C$27,$C$63:$N$82,COLUMN(C1))

which would return the value form the third column of the lookup range
(e.g., column E) rather than the 2nd.

However, this implementation has a potential danger: If a column were to
be inserted before column B, then XL would automatically adjust the
formula to

=VLOOKUP($D$27,$D$63:$O$82,COLUMN(C1))

which would return the value from the wrong column.


In article ,
"KG" wrote:

I have seen a worksheet containing the following VLOOKUP formula:

=VLOOKUP($C$27,$C$63:$N$82,COLUMN(B1))

This is a lookup table for discount factors, column C listing the discount
rates in % starting at C63. What is the purpose/result of using COLUMN(B1)??