Im confused about something relating to tables.

i have this table and i wanted to do a vlookup in column a. if i pick the cell, this this is what comes up: =VLOOKUP(LEFT([@[PO '#]],4),Formulas!B1:C116,2,FALSE) and i get a #N/A in cell A1.

if i manually type it in, then it looks like this: =VLOOKUP(LEFT(B1,4),Formulas!B1:C116,2,FALSE) and i still get a #N/A in cell A1.

i even tried to unlist the table but still can't get it to work right.

if i create a new sheet and put up sample data, then vlookup returns the correct information

what am i doing wrong?