Must have Excel knowledge
Microsoft Excel
Working in FDD will result in significant use of Microsoft Excel and as such understanding the capabilities of Excel (particularly formulas) will be very beneficial. Listed below are functions and/or formulas that will likely provide useful in FDD. Note that these are not complex and it is usually simply a case of understanding the syntax and logic in play. VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) usage is commonly very minimal.
Formulas
Basic Logic Statements
IF
AND
OR
IFERROR
Logic + Operation
SUMIFS
COUNTIFS
AVERAGEIFS
SUMPRODUCT
Data Selection/Reference
VLOOKUP
INDEX
MATCH
INDIRECT
Date Related
EOMONTH
DAYS
DATEVALUE
YEARFRAC
Statistical
MAX
MIN
AVERAGE
MEDIAN
Manipulating Text
RIGHT
LEFT
LEN
FIND
CONCAT
Functions
Remove duplicates
Conditional formatting
Freeze panes
Charts with secondary axes
Grouping
Filtering
Pivot Tables
All you need to know
The below information pack (60+ page document with accompanying example Excel databook) will benefit any individual looking into a potential move into the financial due diligence profession (often referred to as transaction services or transaction advisory services in the market). The information pack will prove useful for potential interview questions or even simply establishing a general understanding of the typical financial due diligence thought-process.
The pack will also be beneficial for any already successful FDD candidate who is looking to acquire a strong technical understanding in order to hit the ground running.
FDD Interview Preparation Pack and Example Excel Databook
Complete FDD (Transaction Services) interview preparation pack (60+ page document + example Excel databook). Insights into the FDD process and detailed technical examples covering all three key FDD workstreams: Quality of Earnings, Net Debt and Net Working Capital.
Candidate feedback on the interview preparation pack:
“I have passed my interview as a consultant in corporate finance. I was asked to prepare the "clean" EBITDA and Working capital. The information pack helped me a lot!” - H Yue, May 2023
“Informative and to the point, gave me the confidence I needed.” - Harkirat K, November 2022
I was able to secure 2 full time offers from my interviews for TAS roles while reviewing the course pack. Most of the recruiters / managers interviewed with were impressed that I had a baseline understanding of FDD coming from an audit background at a big 4" - Jose V, August 2022