The companies register is a public register maintained by the regional courts (in Vienna by the Vienna commercial court, in Graz by the regional court for civil matters). The companies register retains and discloses facts which must be recorded. The companies register consists of a main ledger (the companies register proper), which contains all the company register entries, and a compilation of documents (this is a collection of those documents which underlie the company register entries, such as the Articles of Association or the balance sheet). Each legal entity is assigned a number in the companies register, the so-called company register number, which consists of numbers and a check letter.