In a previous blog post I made the case for XBRL-based general purpose financial statements. In another blog post I called for a digital alternative for general purpose financial statements.
But XBRL is also appropriate for special purpose financial statements. And an internal financial statement is essentially a special purpose financial report.
I created a prototype special purpose financial statement. This might seem like a simplistic example but it is not simplistic at all. The reason I created this was to bridge the gap between a very simple example, a slightly more complicated example, and another slightly more complicated example; and a full financial report.
On the one hand, it is easy to create a "complete" and "precise" that is also provably "consistent" logical system that is small and explain that to someone. On the other end of the spectrum is a complete report that is time consuming to create and hard to explain to someone.
My prototype tries to strike a balance between the two ends of the spectrum to make a point.