The VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP functions in excel return #N/A if the index is not
found in the search list. The parameters should allow you to return zero or
"" in these instances. This would remove the need for a great deal of
validation tests.

Ideally I would suggest the following syntax:

=VLOOKUP(A1,Table!A:N,5,NewParameter)

Where NewParameter could be a value, null, next (the closest value higher
than the search index) or previous (the closest value lower than the search
index)

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