Entering A name and having it equal a value

[cholguin]

I am trying to create a spreadsheet to calculate labor vs sales for our sporting event. Is there any way that I could type an employee name but have the cell equal their pay? I want people to see the labor we've spend but not the employee's rates. I've spent about an hour trying to figure it out and can't.

[#2]

@cholguin 

That's not a goo idea. Enter the pay in another column, and hide or delete the column with the names in the version you send to others.

[#3]

@cholguin as @Hans Vogelaar mentioned, it is risky and it is all about how concerned you are.  For example I could create all kinds of hidden sheets that are locked and obscure how a lookup finds the value but in the end if someone knows the ins and outs of excel, they can get to the information.  For example in the attached I do what I think you are asking for where i give a list of names and then below it I total that list and it says the total $$.  I did it by having another sheet (which could get hidden and the workbook locked) with the amounts there and each cell I named accordingly so then I used the INDIRECT() function to look up those values and voila.  BUT if you open the NAME MANAGER dialog you will see the values.   in the second case I use a VLOOKUP and again if the sheets are locked and such it will keep those individual values hidden, but if they can type on the sheet then they could do that same lookup.

So again, it all depends on how private it has to be because I would not consider ANY information saved in the workbook as truly secure and private as soon as you let others have access to the workbook.