Some investors rely on dividends for growing their wealth, and if you're one of those dividend sleuths, you might be intrigued to know that First Financial Bankshares, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIN) is about to go ex-dividend in just four days. The ex-dividend date is usually set to be one business day before the record date which is the cut-off date on which you must be present on the company's books as a shareholder in order to receive the dividend. The ex-dividend date is important because any transaction on a stock needs to have been settled before the record date in order to be eligible for a dividend. In other words, investors can purchase First Financial Bankshares' shares before the 13th of September in order to be eligible for the dividend, which will be paid on the 2nd of October.

The company's next dividend payment will be US$0.18 per share, and in the last 12 months, the company paid a total of US$0.72 per share. Based on the last year's worth of payments, First Financial Bankshares stock has a trailing yield of around 2.7% on the current share price of $27.01. Dividends are an important source of income to many shareholders, but the health of the business is crucial to maintaining those dividends. We need to see whether the dividend is covered by earnings and if it's growing.

Check out our latest analysis for First Financial Bankshares

Dividends are typically paid out of company income, so if a company pays out more than it earned, its dividend is usually at a higher risk of being cut. Fortunately First Financial Bankshares's payout ratio is modest, at just 44% of profit.

Generally speaking, the lower a company's payout ratios, the more resilient its dividend usually is.

Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

Companies with consistently growing earnings per share generally make the best dividend stocks, as they usually find it easier to grow dividends per share. If earnings fall far enough, the company could be forced to cut its dividend. For this reason, we're glad to see First Financial Bankshares's earnings per share have risen 11% per annum over the last five years.

Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. In the last 10 years, First Financial Bankshares has lifted its dividend by approximately 11% a year on average. It's exciting to see that both earnings and dividends per share have grown rapidly over the past few years.