Which karigar is quietly losing you the most gold?

Gold goes out to a karigar by weight. It comes back as pieces, plus dust, plus scrap. The difference is the loss, and everybody accepts a percentage.

But the percentage is settled at the end of the month, per karigar, from memory and a diary. Nobody compares issue against return per lot, on the day, so a karigar who is quietly one percent worse than the rest stays that way.

Issue weight, return weight, scrap and dust are recorded per lot at the moment of handover.

A customer order goes to design, then to casting, then to a setter, then to polishing, then to hallmarking. Several of those are outside your shop.

When the customer calls, somebody has to phone three people to find out — and the answer is usually a guess with a date attached to it.

Each karigar and vendor updates his own step. He sees only what is with him.

Gold, stones and finished pieces move between the safe, the counter, the karigar and the showcase. Every movement is written somewhere.

At stock-taking the book and the tray disagree, and reconciling it takes days because there is no single record of who took what, when.

Every movement is recorded against the piece and the person, so the count is a comparison rather than an investigation.