Artist carrying back very old pie (8)
I believe the answer is:
turnover
'pie' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'artist carrying back very old' is the wordplay.
'artist' becomes 'turner' (19th century british painter**).
'carrying' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'back' says the letters should be written in reverse.
'very' becomes 'v' (abbreviation).
'old' becomes 'o' (common abbreviation eg in OE for Old English).
'v'+'o'='vo'
'vo' written backwards gives 'ov'.
'turner' placed around 'ov' is 'TURNOVER'.
(Other definitions for turnover that I've seen before include "Quantity of business" , "Gross value of sales" , "Total sales or rate of replenishment" , "Tart" , "Amount of business - pasty" .)