Hello Jermaine_Gray,
of course, with --reset it works. Without it doesn’t, so your suggestion is more a workaround than a solution.
If you run bench update the next time, you will see the same message like before:
Cannot proceed with update: You have local changes in app "erpnext" that are not committed.
Here are your choices:
1. Merge the erpnext app manually with "git pull" / "git pull --rebase" and fix conflicts.
1. Temporarily remove your changes with "git stash" or discard them completely
with "bench update --reset" or for individual repositries "git reset --hard"
2. If your changes are helpful for others, send in a pull request via GitHub and
wait for them to be merged in the core.