Yes, it should be built when the method is called. You are accessing the attribute element directly instead of calling the method on the object.

print "\$obj->{'manual_pnone'} " . $obj->{'manual_phone'} . "\n"; # wr
+ong

# as opposed to
print "\$obj->manual_pnone " . $obj->manual_phone . "\n"; # correct
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Which ultimately fails because of the same mistake here:

sub _build_manual_phone {

    my $self = shift;

    if (! defined $self->{merch_info}) {
        die "ERROR: merch_info not defined\n";
    }

    return $self->{merch_info}->MANUAL_NUMBER;
}
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Always use accessors unless you are in the package that defines the element. (And many would argue you should do so even there.)

Update: I would also double check the case of the column names. Are they really being stored in "merch_info" as upper case?