Your placeholders do not match your number of fields. One way I avoid this is to always use the following syntax:

my $sth = $dbh->prepare("insert into foo SET source=?, name=?, date=?,
+ status=?");
$sth->execute('file', 'Ben marcata', '2001-05-04', '') or die $dbh->er
+rstr;
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Also note that you have a variable $values that you were wanting to use to include 2 different field values. This won't work as a single string, they must be passed separately.

Yea the placeholders where a typo on my part, I'll admit that. If it helps clarify the situation I am wanting to reduce these queries down to one if possible:

$dbh->do("insert into batchpay (source,contract, invoice, substatus, o
+riginal,imported) values (?,?,?,?,?,?)", {}, "$dir-$filename", $data[
+1], $data[2], $status, $line, $datetime );
$dbh->do("insert into batchpay (source,transaction,contract,amount,app
+lied,account,substatus,original,imported) values (?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?)"
+, {}, "$dir-$filename", $data[1], $data[2], $data[3], $data[4], $data
+[7], $status, $line, $datetime );
$dbh->do("insert into batchpay (source,contract,amount,tax,applied,nam
+eonpayment,invoice,substatus,original,imported) values (?,?,?,?,?,?,?
+,?,?,?)", {}, "$dir-$filename", $data[1], $data[2], $data[3], $data[5
+], $data[6], $data[7], $status, $line, $datetime );
$dbh->do("insert into batchpay (source,nameonpayment,account,amount,ap
+plied,invoice,substatus,original,imported) values (?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?)
+", {}, "$dir-$filename", $data[1], $data[2], $data[4], $data[5], $dat
+a[6], $status, $line, $datetime );
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Everything is in a while loop (looping through files within a directory) and each one of those queries is for a different file.

Below is snipplet of code as to what I am doing:

Read more... (5 kB)

If you're trying to group those 4 queries into a single one, then I would do build the query programmatically. There are a couple things you have to worry about, not all the columns are being initialized in every insert, and it would be very easy to assign a value to the wrong field.

I would therefore create a list of hashes that contain field name -> value pairs for each record you're wanting to create. Then compile the list of all possible field names and build the single insert statement. The following code should work for the sample code you provided, but obviously this is untested

my %common = (
    source    => "$dir-$filename",
    substatus => $status,
    original  => $line,
    imported  => $datetime,
);

my @records = (
    {
        contract  => $data[1],
        invoice   => $data[2],
        %common,
    },
    {
        transaction => $data[1],
        contract    => $data[2],
        amount      => $data[3],
        applied     => $data[4],
        account     => $data[7],
        %common,
    },
    {
        contract      => $data[1],
        amount        => $data[2],
        tax           => $data[3],
        applied       => $data[5],
        nameonpayment => $data[6],
        invoice       => $data[7],
        %common,
    },
    {
        nameonpayment => $data[1],
        account       => $data[2],
        amount        => $data[4],
        applied       => $data[5],
        invoice       => $data[6],
        %common,
    },
);

my @fields = do {
    my %seen;
    grep {! $seen{$_}++} map {keys %$_} @records;
};

my $fields = join ',', @fields;
my $placeholders = '(' . join(',', ('?') x @fields). ')';
my $all_placeholders = join ',', ($placeholders) x @records;
my @values = map {@{$_}{@fields}} @records;

$dbh->do("insert into batchpay ($fields) values $all_placeholders", {}
+, @values) or die $dbh->errstr;
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While developing I run PostgreSQL in a way that logs everything I sent to it via DBI. This has the advantage of letting me see the complete SQL sent to the server.

However, taking a wild guess I would think that your SQL, which without adding actual values looks a bit like this:

insert into foo (source, name,date, status) values (?,?)
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