Shortcut to file on shared drive creating duplicates?

At my office we are required to keep a running log of our workload data. The file is an excel spreadsheet kept on a shared drive that everyone (about 40 people) accesses on a weekly basis to enter their personal data. Several of us have created shortcuts on our desktops to access the doent quickly. Now, after a month of using our shortcuts with no problems, we are being told our shortcuts are creating copies on the shared drive that other people who do not use a shortcut are accessing instead of the original doent. Management says these duplicate files have the exact same name and no indication that they are a temporary file or a copy of the original doent. We have had incidences of people making copies because they tried to save while in read mode only, but it says copy in the doent name. This supposed problem shows no indication that the other doent is a copy and I have never actually seen one of these duplicate files. I've done this many times before and never had this problem. Has anyone encountered this problem of duplicate files that resemble the original in every single way, to include the file name, because of someone creating and using a shortcut?