Compare not-exact cells

[makako]

Hi, i have a problem when comparing daily reports. I have to feed the daily file into a general one. The thing is I normaly extract the values with a sum if function to simplify the file and then add it up to the general one. But i started to see repeated clients with little difference.

Ej:
Original File:

John 100
John 150
Mike 125

so i process it to

John 250
Mike 125 and then add it up to the general file: Jhon: 10000
Mike: 12000 etc.
The problem appear when "John" is "John ","Jhon", "John F", etc. is there a function that compares to a certain degree resemblance? thanks

[XLGibbs]

Not really...there is something called "Soundex" function that may help..

http://j-walk.com/ss/excel/tips/tip77.htm

The problem is John doesn't "sound" like John F either...

If the source data is dirty, something like this should warrant some scrubbing of the original source to make comparisons realistic.

Or, ideally, there would be some other identifier you could match with like a user ID or employee ID or something that would not have the same issues.