Under the hood the store method uses DBIx::Classes update_or_insert which in turn calls update for updates. The update method accepts a hashref of key value pairs relating to fields to be udpated. If the value is a scalar ref then it passes the it through unaltered to the database and as such things like 'NOW()' and 'field + 1' can be used allowing the database to do some of the work. - https://metacpan.org/pod/DBIx::Class::Row#update As it stands, we will catch such values and replace them silently with defaults.