Know where every gram of metal consigned to your manufacturers is

It is the material account of a client at their manufacturer, kept in grams rather than in currency. The metal remains the brand's property at all times: a workshop working to order never owns it. The account is credited with shipments and returns, debited with delivered pieces and losses. It is kept in fine weight, metal by metal, so that a 24-carat credit and an 18-carat debit stay comparable.

The weight account is an ownership balance: it follows what the brand owns at the manufacturer, including purely book movements such as an account-to-account transfer at a depository. The livre de police is a statutory register of holding: it records only physical movements of precious material, in and out. A book transfer does not appear in it; receiving the cast pieces does. Both are necessary and neither replaces the other.

The causes are almost always the same: an unrecorded casting return, a sprue shipped without weighing, a component received without going on the scale, stone weight not subtracted before the debit, a scrapped piece not traced — and metal in transit at a partner, which is not a loss but a balance held elsewhere. The first five are recording gaps and are fixed by method; the sixth is normal, it simply has to be shown as "in progress".

The debit on delivery is the weight of the finished piece multiplied by an allowance, customarily 10 %, a factor of 1.10. That allowance covers manufacturing losses: the saw cut on the sprue, filings, polishing. In Liink it resolves in cascade, from the most specific to the most general: product variation, then client, then workshop settings, then default value. A workshop that charges no allowance enters 0 %, and that 0 % is applied as such — otherwise the client would be over-debited on every delivery.

Because the two do not apply to the same base. The allowance invoiced to the brand is calculated on the finished piece. The loss retained by the caster — around 3 % to 3.5 % depending on the house — is calculated on the total weight melted, sprue included. On a compact piece with a short sprue, the allowance covers the loss and leaves a metal margin. On a small piece with a heavy sprue, the caster's base far exceeds the weight of the finished piece and the allowance no longer suffices. That asymmetry explains most negative metal margins, and it only becomes visible if the total weight melted and the weight of the finished piece are recorded separately.

They are part of the metal melted and must come back into the account. They are weighed before any shipment, then sorted: a raw sprue, never reworked, is taken back at par by the caster; a polished or deburred sprue becomes scrap gold and is only taken back at a lower coefficient, often reduced by a per-gram processing charge. These coefficients are contractual and are negotiated partner by partner. Sorting happens before shipping and before recording: reconstructing after the fact what was raw is impossible.

Yes, without exception. A set piece comes off the scale with its stones, and stones are not metal. Liink debits the net metal: final weighing less the stones set at the workshop, less the stones supplied by the brand, less the chain by the metre fitted, which remains the brand's metal and is never debited. Without that subtraction, every set piece over-debits the brand's account and the gap grows with each delivery.

There are four, and they are not traced the same way. The account-to-account transfer at a depository: nothing moves physically, the manufacturer's account is credited in the brand's name. The shipment of physical stock: components, findings, chains. Direct delivery from the supplier to the manufacturer, never passing through the brand: it is recorded in the manufacturer's register, with the brand as counterparty. Finally, recovered metal from after-sales or returns, which must go through refining before being credited, refining charges deducted. In all four cases, the brand's metal position must decrease: the recorded weight is what counts, whether or not an inventory lot is specified.

Liink keeps an electronic livre de police: continuous sequential numbering, timestamping of every entry, cryptographic chaining, correction by rectifying entry rather than overwriting, and export of the register. The legal basis in force is article L. 834-6 of the French Code de commerce, supplemented by articles 56 J quaterdecies to 56 J octodecies of annex IV to the tax code; article 537 of the tax code, still often quoted, has been repealed since 1 July 2025. Entries are kept for six years from the last transaction. Note that each company remains responsible for its own register. A contract manufacturer is not relieved of theirs because their client keeps one.

Common practice in contract workshops is a close every two weeks. Three sources are reconciled: the actual depository statement, the workshop's physical inventory and the metal in transit at each partner. The total must equal the sum of client accounts plus the workshop's own account. A gap above one gram is not rounded away: it is investigated and documented before the next close. The more frequent the reconciliation, the shorter the period to search.

Plans start at €99/month, with no set-up fee and no commitment. Manufacturers invited by a brand use Liink free of charge: it is a founding principle, metal coordination should not have a financial barrier on the workshop's side. A weight account is only worth anything if both parties are looking at the same balance.