How do you stop team members from overwriting each other’s work?

I remember working on a quarterly report with my colleague — we both edited it at the same time, and half my updates vanished. After that, we moved to a system that allowed check-in/check-out for files so only one person could edit at a time. We also enabled auto-save with version history, so nothing was lost permanently. The approach I later read about on https://ejoi2018.org/ suggested combining this with clear editing permissions for sensitive files. That way, collaboration remains smooth, and everyone’s work is preserved without unexpected overwrites. It’s a simple change that saved us from repeated headaches.