How to Get Into Transaction Services?

How to Get Into Transaction Services / FDD After CA: A Complete Career Roadmap.

Why Every CA Wants to Be in Transaction Services? Why Most Don't Make It?

Ask any CA student at a Big 4 firm what their dream role is, and transaction services (TS) comes up in the top three, consistently. The exposure is unmatched. The compensation is better. The work is genuinely interesting. And the exit opportunities—into PE, corporate M&A, strategy consulting—are among the best in Indian finance.

And yet, most CAs never make it into TS. Not because they lack the intelligence, but because they approach the transition without a plan.

I made this move myself—from audit at EY to EY Strategy and Transactions—and over the past 14 years, I have seen hundreds of CAs try, with varying degrees of success. This is the roadmap I wish someone had handed me.

Step 1: Understand What Transaction Services Actually Does

Before you can break into TS, you need to understand it well enough to talk about it credibly in an interview—and to know if it genuinely suits you.

Transaction services is not investment banking. You are not originating deals. You are providing diligence and advisory services to buyers and sellers of businesses. The work is analytically intensive, commercially grounded, and deadline-driven.

The core workstream is Financial Due Diligence (FDD)—examining a target company's financial history and performance, identifying risks and opportunities for the buyer, and quantifying adjustments to purchase price. TS professionals also work on restructuring, carve-outs, valuations, and post-merger integration, but FDD is the backbone of the practice.

If you have read the Investyn guide to FDD, you already have a head start. If not, read it before your next interview.

Step 2: Know Which Qualification Matters—and How to Position Yours

Good news: the CA qualification is highly valued in transaction services. The technical accounting depth, the exposure to audited financials, and the rigour of the CA curriculum are genuine strengths.

What CA does not automatically give you is commercial judgment—the ability to sit across a management team, assess the credibility of their representations, and form a view on business quality. That judgment has to be built separately, and TS teams know this.

If you are a newly qualified CA, position your articleship experience to highlight: analytical work (not just compliance), any transaction or valuation exposure, and instances where you identified issues or formed independent views. If your articleship was purely audit, do not hide it—but be ready to explain what you learned from it and why it prepared you for TS.

CFA candidates should note that the CFA curriculum strengthens valuation fluency, which complements FDD well—but CFA alone is less valued than CA in Indian TS practices. The combination of CA + CFA is genuinely powerful.

Step 3: Build the Skills TS Teams Actually Screen For

TS interviews probe four things: accounting knowledge, Excel and modelling ability, commercial awareness, and communication under pressure.

Accounting knowledge: You need to be comfortable with consolidations, revenue recognition (Ind AS 115), lease accounting (Ind AS 116), working capital mechanics, and normalisation principles. Know these cold—not from a textbook, but in the context of why they matter on a deal.

Excel: TS professionals live in Excel. If your Excel skills are average, fix that before applying. PivotTables, VLOOKUP and INDEX/MATCH, SUMIFS, data cleaning, and building reconciliation schedules are the baseline. Macros and VBA are a bonus.

Commercial awareness: Read the Economic Times and Mint's deal coverage. Track PE transactions in India. Understand basic valuation multiples. Be able to talk intelligently about the Indian M&A landscape—sectors, deal sizes, key players.

Communication: TS professionals write reports and present findings to senior management. Clarity and precision matter enormously. Practice writing concise summaries of complex financial situations.

Step 4: Target the Right Firms and Teams

In India, the primary employers for TS professionals are the Big 4—EY Strategy and Transactions, Deloitte Financial Advisory, KPMG Deal Advisory, and PwC Deals. Each has a distinct culture and deal focus.

EY SaT has historically been the largest TS practice in India, with strong cross-border deal flow. Deloitte has a strong restructuring and valuation practice alongside FDD. KPMG Deal Advisory has built a strong mid-market presence. PwC Deals has a particularly strong tax and structuring capability alongside FDD.

Beyond the Big 4, boutique advisory firms like Investec, Houlihan Lokey (India office), and a growing number of independent boutiques now run active TS practices for mid-market and PE-sponsored transactions.

For most CAs entering TS, the Big 4 is the right starting point—the brand, the training, and the deal flow are unmatched at the entry level.

Step 5: Prepare for the TS Interview Process

Big 4 TS interviews typically involve two to three rounds: a technical screening, a case study or analytical exercise, and a partner or senior manager round.

The technical round will test your accounting knowledge and your understanding of FDD concepts. Expect questions on normalisation, working capital, revenue quality, and deal mechanics.

The case study round will give you a set of financial data—often management accounts, P&L, and balance sheet—and ask you to identify key risks, calculate adjusted EBITDA, or structure a preliminary view of working capital. This is where your Excel proficiency and analytical instinct are assessed together.

The senior round is about fit, communication, and commercial awareness. Be ready to discuss why you want to be in TS (and mean it), what you know about the firm's recent deal activity, and how your background specifically prepares you for this work.

Invest in deal-specific preparation. Generic interview prep will not get you through a TS interview. You need to be able to speak the language.

Step 6: If You Are Currently in Audit, Here Is Your Specific Path

The audit-to-TS transition is the most common route in India, and it has a well-worn path. Many Big 4 TS professionals made this exact move.

Internal transfer applications are taken seriously at the Big 4, and they are often easier to navigate than external applications. Position yourself by: volunteering for any transaction-adjacent work in your current team, building a reputation for strong analysis (not just compliance), and reaching out directly to TS managers to express interest and ask for advice.

Externally, boutique firms are often more open to hiring from audit than the Big 4 TS teams are—because they can train you in-house with direct senior exposure. Starting at a boutique for one to two years before moving to a larger firm is a legitimate and increasingly common path.

The Honest Reality

Transaction services is competitive, demanding, and genuinely rewarding. The learning curve in the first year is steep. Deal timelines are unforgiving. The quality bar for written analysis is high.

But for CAs who want to work at the intersection of finance, commerce, and deal-making—rather than spending their career on compliance and reporting—there is no better starting point.

The key is going in prepared. Know FDD. Know your accounting. Know the deal landscape. And be able to articulate clearly why this is the career you have chosen—not as a fallback from investment banking, but as a genuine first choice.

That conviction, backed by preparation, is what separates the candidates who get offers from the ones who do not.

📌 Accelerate your transition with India's most practitioner-led FDD training. Enroll in the Investyn Deal Fluency Masterclass.