Praise for extremely painful inspection of finances (7)
I believe the answer is:
plaudit
'praise' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'extremely painful inspection of finances' is the wordplay.
'extremely' suggests removing the centre (only the extremes of the word are used).
'inspection of finances' becomes 'audit' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'painful' with its middle removed is 'pl'.
'pl'+'audit'='PLAUDIT'
'for' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for plaudit that I've seen before include "Salute" , "Enthusiastic approval" , "Cheer" , "Praise, accolade" , "Commendation, acclamation" .)