This is a wide root, and the spread is the lesson. One ancient idea, to take charge of, fans out into giving an order, taking a count (a census), assigning a role, and entrusting a deposit. The officer who is in charge, the order he gives, the role you are assigned, the deposit you leave for safekeeping: all are the same act of "taking responsibility over" something. Every word here is verified against pealim, niqqud included.
The same root runs through the verb system. Each binyan is a voice: it bends the one idea into active, passive, causative or reciprocal. Tap to hear.
The same idea of "putting in charge" splits by binyan: pa'al gathers the ancient senses (command, count, visit, remember), pi'el is the military "to command", and hif'il is "to entrust / deposit / appoint". Nif'al is the passive "to be counted", which in army usage becomes "to be missing". The pu'al and huf'al are not lexicalized.
Same root letters, different noun moulds (mishkalim). The mould tells you the function: who does it, the act of doing it, or the thing produced.
Strip the prefixes, suffixes and vowels. Three consonants remain, and the meaning lives there.