Base elements typically show the total number of cases in an axis and are used in the calculation of percentages and statistical tests. UNICOM Intelligence Professional automatically adds a base element to the start of every axis that does not already have a base element. The base elements that UNICOM Intelligence Professional inserts automatically are sometimes called autobase elements.

An axis must always contain at least one base element. You cannot remove or clear the base element from an axis that does not contain another base element. (You will get an error if you attempt to use the Elements.Remove method to remove a base element from an axis that does not contain another base element. Using the Elements.Clear method removes all the elements from the axis and then adds an autobase.) However, you can hide a base element: see Hiding the base element.