thanks for the suggestions. I got it to work but in retrospect I think I was making it more difficult than it had to be.
I went to the data tab, selected Get Data and chose my CSV. then it takes you through a sort of wizard and you can exclude columns from importing, add columns, formulas, sort etc before you even bring the data into your spreadsheet so that's what I did and it worked out great. Now when my CSV file updates on the front end, everything auto updates in the spreadsheet which is what I wanted.
I think a vlookup would have done the same thing. In the beginning I thought I was going to have to use data from two different databases so I think that's why I went the route I did. I like excel but I am a design guy so I don't get into it too often. Part of the reason I tried this out is because I think it'd be useful for some work projects. Yeah I do dorky stuff like this on the weekends.