What Weekly Sparklines Could Add to Financial Statements

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/jcaf.22311
• Date: 01 January 2018
• Published date: 01 January 2018

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© 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

DOI 10.1002/jcaf.22311

What Weekly Sparklines Could

Add to Financial Statements

Daniel Tinkelman and Xinling Fan

There has been

much discussion

of the role of

“big data” in account-

ing, and of the need

to develop tools to

visually pre sent the

large amounts of

information currently

available to com-

panies with highly developed

accounting systems. Shneider-

man’s (1996) widely cited “visual

information-seeking mantra”

suggests providing an overview

of the data first, then letting

users zoom and filter to focus on

important information, and then

providing details on demand.

In this article, we present

financial statements enhanced

by weekly “sparkline” graphs.

The financial statements pro-

vide an overview of financial

performance. The weekly

sparkline graphs allow users to

identify interesting or anoma-

lous data for further inquiry

or analysis. The graphs in our

exhibits are small. Users who

read the statements on com-

puter screens may use larger

monitors to increase visibility

and can zoom in on graphs of

interest. In a computerized dis-

play, clicking on a graph could

reveal the underlying data. If

the graphs are presented in

paper reports, users could ask

for more detailed data.

We believe such graphi-

cal displays could be useful

to management, to auditors,

and to investors. They could

help management understand

historical results and could aid

the budgeting process. Audi-

tors could use them to identify

patterns and anomalies. If a

company chose to present such

information to external users,

current and potential investors

and lenders could use them to

better understand the timing

and variability of a company’s

operations.

FORMAT OF THE

EXHIBITS

Exhibits 1, 2,

and 3 are income

statements, cash

flow statements, and

balance sheets for

three years for an

illustrative corpora-

tion that makes sales of physi-

cal products. The left side of

each exhibit follows traditional

financial statement practices,

so the captions and subtotals

should be familiar to account-

ing and finance professionals.

The cash flow statement has

been prepared using the direct

method.

To the right of the annual

totals, the exhibits have weekly

data for each year. The exhibits

present numerical values for

the minimum and maximum

weekly data, and then present

sparkline graphs (prepared

using Microsoft Excel) with

52 weekly data points. A

horizontal axis is inserted to

improve users’ ability to judge

the slopes of the lines. Dark

black lines are used for assets,

“We demonstrate that adding graphs of weekly

activity to traditional balance sheets and income

and cash flow statements would provide signifi-

cantly enhanced information regarding financial

activity within the year to financial statement

users.” © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Refereed (Double-Blind

Peer Reviewed)