Steve wrote:
smartin- I've run into a snag. When I append the #N/As to the first list,
the VLOOKUP from second list kicks in and recognizes those part numbers...
and I lose the accurate count. any ideas?

Hi Steve,

Not sure why, but your post did not appear until today on my news server.

I rather thought you could do away with list 2 after all that, but if
you want to preserve the results, try this.

I wrote:

Then use VLOOKUP from list 2 to list 1 to identify which parts do not
exist in list 1.

Before continuing, select the VLOOKUP column, copy, and Edit | Paste
Special | Values.