I agree that it depends on the company. My company is big in dollars but we keep a lean staff so we don't get as affected by the economy and don't have to downsize except through attrition (not replacing someone if an employee leaves on their own). We don't have “senior” staff accountants. We have 3 staff accountants, a junior staff accountant, a tax accountant, an accounting clerk, an accounting manager/assistant controller, and a controller. The junior accountant does approzimately 100 bank reconciliations daily, miscellaneous bank entries throughout the month (reclass between banks, book expenses paid for out of branch petty cash, book credits deposited at the banks for trade shows, etc.). 1 staff accountant controls all of our marketing funds and coop funds from vendors. 1 staff accountant does approximately 50 bank reconciliations daily, all the balance sheet account reconciliations for month end, and pays and tracks all of our business licenses. One staff accountant does approximately 50 banks daily, tracks all of our consignment accounting, including entering consignment invoices, which is an AP function, tracking consignment vendor returns, books all of our consignment JEs and reconciles the consignment accounts, and books most of our income statement JEs/reconciliations (sales cutoff, allocations to our branches, etc). Our tax accountant pays and reconciles all of our sales/use tax, and pays and maintains our property tax files. Our accounting clerk completes all of our vendor/customer applications, updates all of our SAM registrations and does a lot of the general administrative functions like copying/mailing out the property taxes, etc. All of these people report to the accounting manager, who also reviews/posts all JEs, maintains all banking/credit card relationships, reconciles the master cash accounts (payroll, disbursements, etc.), handles all audits (internal and external), is involved in all escalated situations, books and reconciles rebate programs, and creates the financials. Sorry for the long post–I hope it helps.
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