Meharry Medical College is a business. It provides services to students and patients for which it receives payments. To provide these services, Meharry buys goods and services from vendors for which it makes payments. The flow of payments in and out of Meharry is carefully budgeted to make sure that we always have as much money coming in as we have going out. It is a carefully choreographed dance.
Contracts are the individual steps in this dance. There are hundreds of transactions each day at Meharry – much like hundreds of steps in a dance. If one of those transactions stumbles – a delivery of supplies is delayed, a payment is withheld, etc. – it can throw off the rhythm of the overall dance.
Contracts ensure that these missteps are minimized by making sure each party knows what it is expected to do, what it expects to receive, and when performance is expected to occur. Once a contract memorializes these expectations in black and white, the transaction is much more likely to proceed smoothly.
