Discrete dynamics in implicit form

A notion of implicit difference equation on a Lie groupoid is introduced and an algorithm for extracting the integrable part (backward or/and forward) is formulated. As an application, we prove that discrete Lagrangian dynamics on a Lie groupoid $G$ may be described in terms of Lagrangian implicit difference equations of the corresponding cotangent groupoid $T^*G$. Other situations include finite difference methods for time-dependent linear differential-algebraic equations and discrete nonholonomic Lagrangian systems, as particular examples.