Thanks for explaining it is a simple way, I have it working

sub compress {
#subroutine to compress the directory tree in to backup.zip in the bac
+kup location
print "Backing up ".$STARTLOCATION."\n";
   my $zip = Archive::Zip->new();

        opendir (DIR, $STARTLOCATION) or die $!;

         while (my $file = readdir(DIR)) {
      
        # Use -f to look for a file
        next unless (-f $STARTLOCATION."\\".$file);

     $zip->addFile($STARTLOCATION."\\".$file, $file);
    print "Added $file to zip\n";
   }
closedir(DIR);
  unless ( $zip->writeToFileNamed($BACKUPNAME) == AZ_OK ) {
      die 'write error';
   }
print "Successfully backed up to ". $BACKUPNAME;
   }
[download]