About ZAF Tools

ZAF Tools started as a folder of macros that one FDD team refused to work without. It is now a full due diligence suite used on live mandates.

Why it exists

Financial due diligence has a strange cost structure. The part clients pay for is judgement: what is an adjustment, what the working capital peg should be, whether the forecast is credible. The part that consumes the hours is mechanical: mapping a trial balance, building schedules, drafting the first version of paragraphs that follow the same structure on every deal. Enterprise software addressed the formatting; the new cloud platforms moved the whole job out of Excel. Neither helped the analyst at 11pm with a databook open.

ZAF Tools automates the mechanical half and leaves the judgement in the reviewer’s hands, cell by cell, inside the workbook everyone already trusts.

Who builds it

Abhishek Bhandari is a financial due diligence practitioner with 15+ years in FDD and M&A advisory at EY and Grant Thornton, working on Nordic and DACH mandates. He founded ZAF Tools to automate the parts of an FDD engagement that do not need a human, and Zion Advisor, an offshore FDD and Quality of Earnings practice.

The add-in is used daily by the Zion Advisor diligence team, which means every release is tested on real client data before it ships. Clients on live engagements include Windy Street and BPS Analytics.

Company

ZAF Tools is a product of ZAF Suite Automation, Gurugram, India. Contact: abhishek.bhandari@zaftool.com.