Crossword Genius

In the firm the hire charge he entered was unclear (10)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

incoherent

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'unclear' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'in the firm the hire charge he entered' is the wordplay.
'the firm' becomes 'co' (a firm is a company).
'the hire charge' becomes 'rent' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'entered' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'co'+'rent'='corent'
'corent' enclosing 'he' is 'coherent'.
'in'+'coherent'='INCOHERENT'

'was' acts as a link.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for incoherent that I've seen before include "rambling" , "drunk?" , "Internally inconsistent" , "difficult to understand" , "Confused" .)

I've seen this clue in the Sydney Morning Herald.
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