I am doing it currently using ODBC and DBI.

# Set the DSN for ODBC connection

my $DSN        = "driver=Microsoft Excel Driver (*.xls);dbq=$SpreadShe
+et";

# Connect to the Spread Sheet

my $ExcelHandle = DBI    ->connect("dbi:ODBC:$DSN", '','')
    or die "$DBI::errstr\n";
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This code will connect using the Excel ODBC driver to the file specified by $SpreadSheet. The tables will be the name of the work sheets.

my $Table    = '[Sheet1$]';  # This translates to Sheet1

# This is an example query statement to read a worksheet.

my $QueryStatement = "SELECT * FROM $Table";

my $ExcelQuery    = $ExcelHandle    -> prepare( $QueryStatement );

$ExcelQuery    -> execute();
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Row one is used for the column names in the table. And the rest of the data can be accessed with SQL queries. I find it works nice. If I am transfering data from spreadsheets to databases I find it easier to work in an all database mindset.