Thats right! What about this?

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my $account_1 = "CALI123456-09";
my $account_2 = "FLOR1234567-01";

my $total_count_1 = length($account_1);


print "Account 1 has $total_count_1 characters\n";

if($total_count_1 < 23) {
  substr($account_1, 4, 0) = ' ';
  print "\n^$account_1^\n";    

}

print "\n*$account_1*\n";
print "*$account_2*\n";
[download]

Thanks!