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Excel Version Control and Naming Conventions

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Excel Version Control and Naming Conventions especially in financial models

A big problem with financial models is that sometimes a number of versions are created and it is not always clear which is the latest version. Excel version control can be a real problem.

A simple solution is to make sure you have appropriate naming conventions. In our opinion you should always start with a date but in a particular format to help with the sorting in folders. We tend to start the file name with the date in the format yyyymmdd so for example 20130815 Example File v1.xls .

If you use this method, when you sort in the folder it will sort the files in date order. If you put the date at the end or use words you get August coming before June and the like.

We generally then give it a useful name, a version number and if really hectic we add a time as well.