The real issue here is not the mechanics of Power Query or VLOOKUPs. It is the assumption that a shared spreadsheet should look and behave like a single, static document. The user asking this question has already hit the wall that most growing teams eventually face: the file works, but only for the person who built it. Everyone else is just renting space in someone else's logic.
What they are describing is a familiar pain. Buyers need to update ETAs at different times, for different vendors, and the old approach of separate sheets with VLOOKUPs collapses the moment you introduce Power Query. That is not a failure of effort or intelligence. It is a structural mismatch. The spreadsheet was never designed to be a multi-user database, and trying to force it into that role means layering workarounds on top of workarounds until the simplest task becomes a fragile chain of dependencies.
The good news is that the solution is not a more complicated spreadsheet. It is a smarter one. The manual note column they need is a clue. Notes are freeform, human, and unpredictable. They do not belong in a rigid lookup structure. They belong in a place where the data model stays clean, but the people using it can still communicate. That means separating the data entry from the data presentation. Let Power Query handle the heavy lifting of pulling and refreshing the PO details, but give buyers a dedicated, simple interface for their updates. A single column for notes, a clear field for ETA changes, and a system that writes those updates back to the source in a way that does not break the next refresh.
This is not about dumbing anything down. It is about removing unnecessary complexity so the tool serves the workflow, not the other way around. If a buyer has to understand how the query is structured just to type a date, the design has already failed. The goal is to make the spreadsheet feel obvious, even if the underlying mechanics are not. That is what accessible, AI-native spreadsheet tools are moving toward: interfaces that adapt to how people actually work, not the other way around.
So here is the concrete takeaway. Stop looking for a single formula or a clever workaround that solves the whole problem. Instead, rebuild the file with a clear separation between the source data, the calculation layer, and the user-facing entry points. Let buyers interact with a clean form or a filtered view. Keep the Power Query refresh on the back end. And make the notes column a permanent, visible part of the workflow, not an afterthought. That is how you turn a frustrating shared file into a tool your team actually wants to use. It is not about more features. It is about fewer barriers.