I agree. It sounds like you have a good handle on the approach. You should just need to install the DBD::Mysql and go to town with updates to it. Have your SAP team review your SQL if you are not that familiar with it. Over all this is a good project to show what Perl can do with database access as well as the other things it can do. Your comments after the where do I start would be a good place to start go through that process jot down any real problems you run into and bring them up here for assistance.