Excel For Farmers: VLOOKUP

Nick Horob


Spreadsheets are great tool for farm managers.

This is our second blog post on Excel tips and tricks for farmers. We’re going to take a look at the VLOOKUP function which is probably tied with Data Tables as my favorite piece of Excel functionality. Here is a link to our previous blog post on data tables: Excel for Farmers: Data Tables

VLOOKUP is a function that is used to pull a specifc piece of data from a list. In the video below, we use VLOOKUP to setup a drop-down list that calculates the price of seed corn per acre depending on what variety you select from the list. This is a great tool for small price comparisons or as part of a larger farm financial tracking tool.

On a different note, we’ll be releasing our farm finance software tool on June 15th. We’ll be hosting a webinar that day to provide an overview of its functionality and give more insight into our long-term vision for helping our customers thrive in the ever-volatile farm economy.

Spreadsheets are great for simple analysis or building a one-year farm income statement. Where they begin to show their weakness is when farmers try to conduct multi-year financial analysis. Farming is a unique business where every year is essentially a stand-alone business. A great farm business manager should be easily able to conduct multi-year peformance analysis.

Also, spreadsheets lack when pieces of the data are ever-changing (eg. commodity prices). They also don’t contain the ability to notify you if/when certain farm peformance targets are met.

I’m not shy about it, I love spreadsheets! But it’s also my passion to build a tool that fills in their weaknesses.

Keep an eye out for our upcoming webinar!

Nick Horob

Nick Horob

Passionate about farm finances, software, and assets that produce cash flow (oil wells/farmland/rentals). U of MN grad.

Fargo, ND
http://www.harvestprofit.com
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Excel For Farmers: Data Tables

This is the first post in a series that will focus on how Microsoft Excel tips and tricks for farmers. Spreadsheets are an awesome tool for any farm decision maker!

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