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 Shell plc (LON:SHEL) is about to go ex-dividend in just 4 days. The ex-dividend date is one business day before the record date, which is the cut-off date for shareholders to be present on the company's books to be eligible for a dividend payment. It is important to be aware of the ex-dividend date because any trade on the stock needs to have been settled on or before the record date. Thus, you can purchase Shell's shares before the 14th of November in order to receive the dividend, which the company will pay on the 19th of December.

The company's next dividend payment will be US$0.344 per share. Last year, in total, the company distributed US$1.38 to shareholders. Based on the last year's worth of payments, Shell stock has a trailing yield of around 4.2% on the current share price of UK￡25.645. Dividends are an important source of income to many shareholders, but the health of the business is crucial to maintaining those dividends. That's why we should always check whether the dividend payments appear sustainable, and if the company is growing.

View our latest analysis for Shell

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. Shell is paying out an acceptable 56% of its profit, a common payout level among most companies. A useful secondary check can be to evaluate whether Shell generated enough free cash flow to afford its dividend. Fortunately, it paid out only 26% of its free cash flow in the past year.

It's positive to see that Shell's dividend is covered by both profits and cash flow, since this is generally a sign that the dividend is sustainable, and a lower payout ratio usually suggests a greater margin of safety before the dividend gets cut.

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

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

Businesses with shrinking earnings are tricky from a dividend perspective. Investors love dividends, so if earnings fall and the dividend is reduced, expect a stock to be sold off heavily at the same time. So we're not too excited that Shell's earnings are down 2.2% a year over the past five years.

Another key way to measure a company's dividend prospects is by measuring its historical rate of dividend growth. Shell's dividend payments per share have declined at 2.7% per year on average over the past 10 years, which is uninspiring. While it's not great that earnings and dividends per share have fallen in recent years, we're encouraged by the fact that management has trimmed the dividend rather than risk over-committing the company in a risky attempt to maintain yields to shareholders.