Version everything, and never write “final”

A naming convention takes one minute to adopt and saves you the afternoon three weeks from now.

Agree a convention with your team and use it on every file without exception. Something like:

YYYYMMDD_ModelName_vXX_initials.xlsx

Then mark what actually left the building. A file that was sent gets vSent. Presented, vPresented. Shared with the client, vShared. Keep those in a separate folder.

Why this matters arrives later. Your client asks you to quickly resend the document your partner shared last month, and you are clicking through eight versions trying to work out which one was the one without the stickers. With the convention, that is a ten-second job.

Two additions worth the effort:

•  Keep a short change log. A few bullets on the first slide or in a README tab. When somebody asks what changed between v04 and v06, you want that answer in thirty seconds rather than thirty minutes.

•  Never name a file “final”. There is no such thing. Every consultant alive has a file called Final_v3_REALLYfinal.

Weeks or years from now, you will be very glad you did this.