Question : Vlookup and slow performance

I have a workbook that has a table with various employee info (SHEET1).  I have another table on another sheet that has employee hours(SHEET2).  Then a thrid sheet that has a report generated from the employee hours(SHEET3).  There are alot of formulas that are referencing specific tables, ranges, and sheets.  

My issue is that i've found that my first table on the  SHEET1 takes quite a while to input a new value or add column or row to it.  the issue that i have found is that im using Vlookup in SHEET2 the second table, to automtically input the employee's first and last names. SHEET3 pulls over all employee hours from SHEET2.

The problem that i cant resolve is how do i track excel's moves?  The slow issue only occurs if i have rows in SHEET2 and 3 going over 1000 rows.  There is no green processing bar that appears on the bottom when i enter a value in SHEET1's table.  Excel just seems to freeze up and then updates the table.  

How can i make excel's VLOOKUP work fast no matter the size of the table and how can i track its moves?

Answer : Vlookup and slow performance

I played with it further and could not make it work.  I have attached the file as a 97/2003 version.  
when you type in a new entry in first table notice how long it takes for it to update.  the other thing i noticed is that large sheets in excel 2003 work faster than in 2007.

i would like it if you test this out in 2007 by resaving this workbook as a 2007 version book.  you'll notice how long it will take for you to populate just one cell entry on the first table.

ive been looking at various things that will help speed up the process by using simillar functions to the Vlookup like DGET but that will only allow for retrieval of 1 row on of information.  I have also used a mixture of index and match to query but that did not seem to do the trick either.  

So far i split the workbook into two workbooks i kept tabs "employees", "Cost Codes", "Employee Time", and "qty" in one workbook then took the "Payroll" tab to a second workbook.  This works fine since i have the user copy and paste the values from the employee time into another tab in the second workbook.  I had to modify the formulas in the second workbooks "payroll" tab to reflect the changes.


again ive been playing with this all month long please see where the bottle neck is.  

Thank you so much in advance.

97-2003-Time-Card.zip (4.4 MB) (File Type Details) 

time card