Summing together 2 or more VLOOKUPs in Excel - excel

Question

I have a cell which needs to sum together 3 different values, but I don't want to use relative/absolute cell references because the source data changes every year so the cell references would need re-pointing every year.
I've used VLOOKUPs for cells which only need to show 1 value and that's all fine, but I cannot find a way to add together the outcomes of 2 or more VLOOKUPs. Also, each of the 3 values have different criteria, and I think I therefore need 3 separate VLOOKUP functions.
Is there a way of doing this?
This is the formula I've used, which returns a '#N/A' error:
=vlookup("10000",datatable,3,false)+vlookup("10001",datatable,3,false)+vlookup("10002"),datatable,3,false)+...etc etc etc.
Many thanks in advance
Rob

Answer 1

Here is a simple example of summing 3 VLOOKUPs:
=SUM(VLOOKUP("A",A1:B3,2,FALSE),VLOOKUP("E",A5:B7,2,FALSE),VLOOKUP("I",A9:B11,2,FALSE))
I put 3 simple tables, each 3 rows and 2 columns, and added the lookup values together. So I look up A and return 1, E and return 5, I and return 9. Then I sum them and return 15. :-)

Answer 2

Providing the only part to vary is the lookup_value (as appears to be so in your case) then, instead of writing multiple distinct VLOOKUP clauses followed by summing them (which could result in an extremely long construction indeed), you can use a single, equivalent VLOOKUP set-up.
So instead of, for example:
=VLOOKUP("X",DataTable,3,FALSE)+VLOOKUP("Y",DataTable,3,FALSE)+VLOOKUP("Z",DataTable,3,FALSE)
we can use the shorter:
=SUM(VLOOKUP(T(IF(1,{"X","Y","Z"})),DataTable,3,FALSE))
or, for more flexibility, if we have "X", "Y" and "Z" within a contiguous range somewhere within the worksheet, e.g. H1:H3, then:
=SUM(VLOOKUP(T(IF({1},H1:H3)),DataTable,3,FALSE))
If the criteria are not text strings, but numerics, then we can use N instead of T: for example, if we were looking for, not "X", "Y" and "Z", but 1, 2 and 3, then we would use:
=SUM(VLOOKUP(N(IF(1,{1,2,3})),DataTable,3,FALSE))
or:
=SUM(VLOOKUP(N(IF({1},H1:H3)),DataTable,3,FALSE))
If our criteria comprise a mixture of text and numerics, e.g. "X", 2 and "Z", then we need a slightly different approach, though I will leave that to another post!
References:
https://excelxor.com/2014/09/05/index-returning-an-array-of-values/
Regards

Answer 3

Good heavens. Stop using VLOOKUP, everyone. INDEXtogether with MATCH is cleaner, neater and less prone to errors.
Now, for what you are doing, you don't need either. Why not check out SUMIFS
In your case it would look something like this
=SUMIFS(Sumcolumn;Criteriacolumn;10000;Criteriacolumn2;10001,...)
And, even if your sumcolumns are different from each other - it is still easier to sum several sumifs than it is to sum several vlookups, since vlookup will throw a #N/A if empty reference, whereas sumifs will return 0. If you have a desire to be extra efficient with just one formula, use SUMPRODUCT - however that is a formula that needs some practice to write.