currency value assigned to variable Error 2023

I have the following line in my VBA code.


billrte = Application.VLookup(startNum, Worksheets("" & sheetnm & "").Range("A2:M9999"), 16, False)

billrte is declared as a variant
startnum is set at 5
sheetnm is set to the tab name of IAAI

This exact line of code appears 8 times previous as I am assigning data to variables and it works every time, until it gets to billrte where it assigns the value of "Error 2023"

The issue appears to be that the value in the worksheet is a currency.

If I change the variable to be a currency type it throws a "Type Mismatch" error.

I have searched the forum and found nothing close to this issue.

Any help is truly appreciated.

Tim