Counting a gold shop by weight: the daily count and day close

Closing a gold shop is not just counting the cash drawer. At the end of the day the owner needs to know two things: is the gold that should be here actually here, by weight, and does the cash match what was sold and bought. The first matters more, because gold rarely leaves a shop in one large theft. It leaves a gram at a time.

Why by weight and not by piece count

Counting pieces finds a missing piece. It does not find a piece swapped for a lighter one, a chain with two links cut out, or scrap bought at one weight that reached the safe at another. A scale finds all of these, because it measures what actually matters: grams.

Step one: the scale itself, every morning

Before weighing anything: put the scale on a level surface away from the air conditioning, zero it, then place the reference weight. If it does not read that weight exactly, everything you weigh today is in doubt. Record the reading; a scale that has drifted 0.05 g creates a daily difference nobody can explain.

Step two: every movement recorded when it happens

An end-of-day count only works if every movement during the day was recorded: every sale, every trade-in, every piece of scrap bought, every piece that went to the workshop or came back, every transfer between branches. The "expected" figure is simply the morning balance plus what came in minus what went out. Any movement not recorded will show up as a difference in the evening.

Step three: weigh each fineness separately

Do not weigh all the stock together. Gather the trays for each fineness — 21K on its own, 18K on its own, 24K on its own — and weigh each group, because a gram missing from 18K is not made up by a gram too many in 21K. Their values differ, and mixing them hides the problem instead of revealing it.

Step four: compare, and record the difference with its reason

Example: the end of a day in a shop, with pure gold at — for illustration — 5,000 per gram:

The 21K difference is twenty milligrams on more than a kilo: within the scale’s precision and tray dust. It is recorded, not chased. The 18K difference is two and a quarter grams — and that is not dust.

Before assuming the worst, look for the ordinary reasons: a piece sold and not recorded, sent to the workshop without paperwork, put in another fineness’s tray, or a ring still on a customer’s finger while they decide. If no reason turns up, record the difference as it is, with a note and the name of whoever counted, and never adjust the balance silently. A silent adjustment hides today’s gap and leaves the next one without a trail.

Step five: the cash

Expected cash = morning float + cash sales − cash paid out for scrap and expenses. Count the drawer and compare. In a gold shop, watch scrap purchases especially: a lot of cash goes out against gold coming in, and a mistake in one shows up in the other.

Daily, weekly, monthly

• Daily: weigh each fineness separately, count the cash, record the differences.
• Weekly: match pieces by tag or barcode against the list, to find a piece in the wrong place.
• Monthly: review the accumulated differences per fineness and per person, and the workshop loss per craftsman.

The day close in ZahabFlow

The close screen in ZahabFlow shows, for each fineness, the grams that should be there according to the recorded movements, and the cash expected in the drawer. You enter what you weighed and counted, the difference appears at once for each fineness, and it is saved with your note on the shift record. No balance is adjusted silently: the difference stays written against the name of whoever closed the shift.